Poem: Nowhere to Go but Up

Nowhere to Go but Up

I stood at the edge of the almost-gone,
With pockets full of maybe and doubt,
The ground had learned my name too well,
Every fall spelling it out.

The sky didn’t promise anything,
No guarantees stitched in blue,
Just a quiet space above my head
As if to say, What else will you do?

I shed the weight of borrowed fears,
The rusted rules, the “not enough,”
Found that hope is a muscle
Built only by lifting the rough.

When doors collapsed into the dust
And maps forgot where I’d been,
I traced a staircase in the dark
With faith for each next step in.

I learned that up isn’t sudden flight,
It’s breath by breath, scar by scar,
A thousand small refusals
To stay exactly where you are.

So here I rise, not unafraid,
But braver than I was before—
When you’ve touched the bottom long enough,
There’s nowhere to go but up, once more.

Thank-you for reading.

Remember there are many paths back to God.

Follow your own path,

Brenda Marie