Image by Kristina Flour/Unsplash, Public Domain Dedication (CC0).
No One Told Me
No one told me
it would lead to this.
No one said
there would be secrets
I would not want to know.
No one told me about seeing,
seeing brought me
loss and a darkness I could not hold.
No one told me about writing
or speaking.
Speaking and writing poetry
I unsheathed the sharp edge
of experience that led me here.
No one told me
it could not be put away.
I was told once, only,
in a whisper,
“The blade is so sharp—
It cuts things together
—not apart.”
This is no comfort.
My future is full of blood,
from being blindfold,
hands outstretched,
feeling a way along its firm edge.
This poem is excerpted with permission from David Whyte’s collection of poetry, River Flow: New & Selected Poems.
Listen to David Whyte’s On Being interview, “The Conversational Nature of Reality.”
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