Deconstruction not as in Derrida
But baseboards pulled gently,
Carefully, finished by small hands
Decades long past
Cabinet doors stacked on the floor
You never know what you’ll reuse
Standing back, hands on hips
Deep in imagining
Burn the shoebox of him
and loss and the road not taken
Except the teddy bear
You place to the side.
Fill up the bags of clothes and sheets
Cry as you pull in to the shelter
Hand over the memories
Hoping it will help
a fresh start
To begin
That’s what we need
To tear it all down and click Refresh
Deconstruct every assumption
The sofa’s never been over there
What if we let some light in
Build a shelf for the keepsakes
Some porcelain smashed and an exhale
Some wrapped to store away
No longer on display
But part of you all the same
Grateful for what brought you here
But not caged by it
Hammers to demolish
and to drive the tiny nail
20-odd years and it’s time for change
Ideas and patterns
The fabric that holds you,
Shades in the colors of life
Each brick and paving stone
Handled one by one
Reconsidered and examined
To determine its place
What if, what could be
What has been here all this time
And you didn’t even know it
Growing resilient new life
Who would have thought
Destruction could be this
This beautiful, this curious,
This wonder-full
After, when you’re covered in sheetrock
And you’ve cried it out
And the tarps cover the floor
It begins. Hope.
Stand up from the bathroom floor
And you see it in the reflection
What if… What if that were there
Pieces fall into place
One day, home looks familiar again
Different, so much different
But more you, somehow,
More who you’ve always been.
You’ve become.
Now that it’s in motion, unraveled
It keeps going
Evolving
Deconstructing and reconstructing
Not as in podiums and dusty studied texts
But as a heart pumps blood,
As the soul beckons you home.
Jenna DeWitt
Jenna DeWitt (she/her) is an aromantic asexual Methodist. She lives in sunny Southern California. Jenna earned a bachelor of arts in news-editorial journalism from Baylor University and has over a decade of experience working on Christian magazines.
Yet Alive 