Poetry Therapy

"Wyrd"

The other day, a word opened its ribs
and showed me its heart. "Weird."
A sound I had spent years scattering
across conversations,
never knowing I was carrying
an ancient relic in my mouth.
I thought it meant
the bent branch,
the moonflower blooming at noon,
the soul who hears music
inside empty rooms.
I thought it meant
out of place.
Then I followed it backward.
Through centuries shedding their skins,
through dust-covered alphabets,
through the bones of language,
until I reached its first name "wyrd."
And suddenly the word became a doorway.
Not strange.
Not peculiar.
But fate.
The becoming.
The great unfolding
of a life into itself.
As if destiny were not a destination
but a seed
remembering how to become a forest.
How curious,
that we forgot.
That a word once used
to describe the invisible currents
guiding stars and sparrows alike
became a label
for those who wandered beyond the fence.
Yet perhaps we never forgot at all.
Perhaps the meaning remained hidden,
sleeping beneath the surface
like roots beneath winter.
Perhaps those we call weird
are simply standing closer
to the mystery.
Closer to the place
where time folds in on itself
and the future sends letters
to the past.
Closer to the thread
the fates spin from moonlight
and tuck into the pockets
of dreaming children.
Now when I say the word,
it feels different.
It tastes of old forests
and constellations.
Of paths appearing beneath bare feet
a moment before the step is taken.
Of something vast and unseen
quietly arranging coincidences
into a map.
And I wonder
how many truths remain hidden
inside the words we use every day,
waiting for someone
to follow them home.
For maybe weirdness
was never an exile from belonging.
Maybe it was always
a signpost.
A wink from the universe.
A reminder that beneath the visible world
another world is weaving.
And every strange thing,
every unlikely meeting,
every ache, every wonder,
is another stitch
in the living tapestry
of wyrd.

🌀JLG

Inspired by the discovery of the etymology of the word weird.