Spider
All of my pain is a spider
I’ve learned not to crush
with the heel of my shoe
but to guide with a page
of my journal
into an empty glass.
I ask questions about
its life, its purpose
as I walk careful
out to the garden and rest
it down on the earth.
My pain—how happy
it is to leave me
whenever I treat it
kind.
Notes
Following the survival strategy of "Instead of Depression," Gibson’s "Spider" directly confronts our internal pain and sorrow, personifying a heavy, creeping grief as a small, fragile houseguest. It beautifully serves July's theme of lightness by demonstrating that we don't have to violently crush or run away from our darkest feelings; instead, we can choose to sit quietly alongside them. By defusing the terrifying weight of suffering through a gentle, almost tender truce, the poem reminds us that sorrow loses its paralyzing power the moment we stop fighting it and allow it to simply exist. . #summer #pain #poetry #sorrow #moving