Above it All by Susan Shea


I annoy myself

disappoint myself

come too close

to missing deadlines

go too far 

to express my needs

                                               

I tell you this 

so you know 

I am loving you

my neighbor

as I love myself

and there lies the problem

                                                
I keep trying to bury

my weaknesses in a hole

rise above my shortcomings

                                                
pour cold water over them

turn my frozen spots into a rink

where we can go 

iceskating together

stay in the moment

where only fresh air 

is slapping us 

in the face of a new day


Susan Shea is a retired school psychologist who grew up in Brooklyn, New York and now lives in a forest in Pennsylvania. So grateful to be a full-time poet now, she has written more than 800 poems in the past two years. Within that time, her poems have been published in or are now forthcoming in Chiron Review, ONE ART, Invisible City, Ekstasis, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Green Silk Journal, The Write Launch, The Gentian, Across the Margin, October Hill Magazine, Litbreak Magazine, Poemeleon, Beltway Poetry, Foreshadow, The Loch Raven Review, and others. Within the last few months one of her poems was nominated for Best of the Net by Cosmic Daffodil, and three poems were nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Umbrella Factory Magazine.