Because You Helped To Become Well Poem by Charlotte Ballard

Because you helped me to become well…
My days aren't spent watching other people's clouds,
My own breath comes up, swelling the breeze—
Lifting the Robin and the Blue Jay,
Rustling wings that replaced fear's greed.

Because you helped me to become well…
Cousin Pain doesn't visit like he used to-
Teaching me in dry, hot strokes to mind
How I lisped, bent and borrowed remembrance in a pill.

Because you helped me to become well…
Days, and Days, and Days peak up,
Opening hidden pathways, and revealing secret places
Where amber leaves crunch underfoot even as I grasp
For the spring's first flower—a peteled pink rose.

Because you helped me to become well…
My sins are no longer visiable in the cleft of a sofa's bottom
Or in a bed-too long tucked away with only bread and water.
The rabbit's house has become too small.

Because you helped me to become well.