My sister prodded.
She was brave
charging through boundaries
turning carts of questions
safely hidden in my head.
I knew why.
I knew.
It was an assumption-
I’d get married. Have kids…
do whatever my parents did.
It weighed on me,
even at ten.
This idea that I would acquiesce my life
accepting my fearful identity.
At sixteen
I heard the Shepherd sing.
It was time to go.
Time to take hold
of those strange hands
Sorrow and Suffering.
Familiar strong hands
pressed over my mouth.
I was so afraid.
Much.
I knew fear
and how to appease him.
I knew how to keep myself
in his limits.
All the way home from that
trysting place
I trembled at the thought
of facing my friends-
I was so afraid.
I hid in the backseat.
Petrified into a migraine.
Years passed.
In a fog,
this isn’t where he
promised to take me.
Nowhere near places higher.
Sinking in depression’s mire.
Maybe it had all been a lie.
Maybe I should have stayed
with that Craven Fear guy.
But didn’t she go through this too?
Didn’t she make it through?
I sometimes picture the Shepherd’s face
all jolly, head back
mouth ajar with a hearty laugh.
And I chuckle.
He sure is doing a “preposterous thing”
turning weak, fearful me
into one with stag’s feet-
leaping to precarious heights,
descending freely to the least.
Sheila Dougal 