Student

Photo by Lee Lindsey McKinney

“I’m a student of life!”

she proclaims, as if

graduation were the farthest

thing from her mind –

or at least from her heart.

   How does this attitude work

   in the real world,

   where “control issues”

   pop-up at every corner,

   insisting we get a grip?

      In life’s adolescence –

      a period not necessarily confined

      to years ending in “teen” –

      hands and minds squeeze racquetballs

      in order to strengthen their clench.

   Suffocation begins when

   a fourth and fifth “R” –

   Relationships and Religion –

   succumb to the hands of control;

   there is no room for love,

   much less for God, if we’re unable

   to liberate the marionette strings.

Learning to relax and release

is a lifelong course;

a crucial one for receiving

a degree of/in Grace.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins