Half Baked

Which is a good thing

Image by Steffen Zimmermann from Pixabay

I am a poet, not a pastry chef
but I have been baking.

And, oh, how my discomfort shows!
My cake leans like Pisa’s tower –
foundation cracked.
I was in a rush, you’ll easily see.

Turning up the heat too high.

While my insatiable addiction
to acclaim’s sweet coma
led me to stack more layers
than the base can support.

And yet…

Each layer is a past life
tinted chakra-colors,
iced with healing lessons learned
whose vitamin-packed chewiness
grows on me
as, pardon the cliché, I grow
wizened and wiser.

Today, I platter this cake on a gold tray
sprinkled with edible glitter and hope from on high.
Have I mustered the ability to shape-shift?
Am I now a sparkler bedazzled
by my Self, by the grace of becoming?

©Jenine Bsharah Baines 2025

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Thank you, Thomas Gaudex and Louise Foerster for the warm home for my inner scribe here on Substack.

Thank you, dearest readers.