It Hurts

It hurts.

It hurts when the shell breaks,
to make room for the new.

When the husk cracks,
so that the green can push through.
It hurts when we’re growing
beyond what our constraints can restrain.

Growth cannot be delayed
but pushes through, despite the pain.
I would like to tell you that that this will end,
but life has a way of emerging from within.

Losses and mistakes,
you count them as though you were to blame.

Don’t
They’re the breaking of you
in preparation,
for all you’ll become.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
June 2017
‘The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.’
Ralph Waldo Emerson
‘Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.’
Kahil Gilbran