Sweet Strength

Some days

Require you to be soft,

Flower petals in the warmth

Sweet scents filling nostrils–

Other days

You have to be the sun–

So scorching all shrivel beneath you,

Singeing nose hairs with the proof

Of your ability to destroy.

You are not required to be one

And never the other,

Not required to be beauty

Without a little beast,

Not meant to simply

Fade away and crumble

To dust beneath shoe

Without creating your

Own devastation.

Despite the words

That swirl in print and voice

Sweetness comes with strength,

An ability to bend without breaking,

To balance and grow–

But weakness comes

With the lack of ability to change.

Welcome your fire,

The heat that grows your petals

And floods your veins with a power

That no one else can touch.

-Katrina Thornley

My poetry collection, Arcadians: Lullaby in Nature, is now published!