This book was published as part of BookLeaf Publishing's 21-day writing challenge. The full volume can be purchased/previewed on BookLeaf Publishing's Bookstore.
Exerpt
Lessons are learned like slips of paper
Collected in a jar for safekeeping
They could be torn, crumpled, crisply folded
Covered in dirt or the shards of heartbreak
It took to collect them.
Or perhaps they're untouched except to be placed
In the thick glass and disturbed no more
But they are all paper.
Cut from an experience as large as a tree
Delicately condensed into an object to hold
In your palm until the ink absorbs into your skin,
Stuck in your back pocket only to be
Forgotten about and sent through the wash,
Or put in the jar
The ones in the jar stick
Those are the lessons we remember
I've learned many lessons over the years
But the very first one I put in my jar was acceptance
Acceptance of myself for who I was, and
Acceptance of others for who they are
I think it only fitting my jar began with acceptance,
because isn't acceptance the beginning of everything?
2021
