Blown Into Me

We often cannot know ourselves but through the challenges and joys of being in relationships with others. Their lives can leave us bouyed or cold and lonely. As unsettling as this feels, we cannot avoid and nor should we, these forces that shape us.

Sometimes at my back
Challenging me to move forward
Footfalls unsteady
Stumbling as a toddler

Sometimes in my face
Resisting the path of my own wishes
Steps lose grip
Leaning in as an elder
Straining to stay upright

a Cold
that my own Heat
can't recover

I gather in the warmth
Of loving embers
As gentle as the evening Breeze
Cooling the skin
Erasing the sweat
From the days urgency
You are all the things
I am not

And without you
I cannot know
Who I am.