Poetry Pause

Local writer shares perspective through verse

Co-founder of Emerald Coast Storytellers, Kristy Holditch is a published writer and aspiring novelist residing in Grayton Beach. Her work has been featured in publications such as Huffington Post and Beach Happy Magazine. By day, Holditch works in marketing, still making time on the side for her true passion project—her forthcoming, debut novel titled Just Passing Through. In the midst of it all, she has embraced the new title of mom.

In the following poems, Holditch explores themes of identity and motherhood. To hear more from Holditch and other local writers, visit EmeraldCoastStoryTellers.com for upcoming events.

Meet Me at the Crossroads

Meet me at the place where two roads become one and, in becoming one, actually total to much more. I wish it was a choice of left or right, north or south, eat or be eaten. But the truth is, it’s never quite that simple, is it? In the choice of this way or that way, there is right and wrong, good and bad, black and white. But by whose definition? The world’s? Our parents’? Our partner’s? A talking head on the television screen? A stranger on the street?

Still, I hope you’ll meet me there.

I find it odd, and perhaps oddly forgiving, that the only path from such a place is forward. As if that’s the only movement that exists. Giving us one less choice to make among a list that multiplies at the very thought, a list neverending at best.

So, will you? Meet me?

As it turns out, you’re all I have. Because at the end of all this, no matter where or how this all ends, we’ll leave here, you and me, with nothing else but each other.

And so, I’ll hold your hand and stroke your cheek, tuck that rogue strand of hair that’s come undone in the wind, and tell you you’re capable of this choice, of any choice, of anything. And who cares if the world looks on, if strangers stare. Let them. Let them look and stare at the woman holding her own hand, stroking her own cheek, tucking her own rogue strand of hair. Because that’s what we need when life spits us out at the crossroads:

Ourselves.

And maybe that’s all we ever needed.

A Family Tree

I look up at the trees, the oaks and magnolias, and find myself in awe of all they are. All they hold and raise and carry. Leaves by the thousands, sipping in sunshine, held by twigs and branches, an intricate web of limbs bending and curving just for them, though never breaking. Beneath the canopy, their trunks stand solid and steadfast, their growth and struggles unseen to the naked eye. Oh, but they’re there; much like tree roots, buried and invisible, except when they move the earth itself, morphing the surface, strong enough to crumble concrete. It can be said these roots perhaps do the most work, gripping hard, holding steady, absorbing nutrients for all the rest. But I believe the trunk is just as important. Integral yet thankless, its role lifts all it carries to new heights, sacrificing its own light and breath, passing along its sustenance so its very extensions may reach the sky. If the leaves, twigs, and branches are the children, then the trunk is the mother. Her weathered bark a glimpse into all she’s endured thus far, initials carved into her chest like scars, a love so unconditional she splits herself into two, into many, desperately trying to be everything to everyone, and somehow making it graceful, effortless. Just as the world expects her to. Who then holds the trunk if not herself ? Connecting soil to sky, earth to atmosphere, shade to light—she is rooted so she can rise. But everything she takes she takes so she can give. She holds still so her leaves can dance, so her branches can sway, so her life can hold meaning. And meaning can, in turn, hold her.