Hands And Earth
I often stay inside in the mornings. I sit and read. I check Facebook and talk to my mom. The house is cool in the winter and I often stay in bed under the blankets until the urge to eat or pee or the reality of my job pulls me out of bed.
This morning, my husband wouldn’t leave me alone. He was insistent that I had 10 minutes to come outside. I, of course, wanted to know exactly what I would be doing and why it had to be now. He doesn’t say much in general, and even less when I ask these kinds of questions. “Just come,” he says. So I do, half-heartedly. I roll out of bed with a blanket still wrapped around my shoulders, trailing unevenly behind me in the dirt. My head is tilted to the side and my eyes looking up at him and we walk down the stairs towards the newest planting. I ask a few more questions, without answer, still dragging my fleece blanket. I’m sure he wants to show me how he has carefully planted some avocado trees and mulched them just so, and so I already have my response, prepared to gently stroke his ego about what nice work he is doing for us here. But we walk by the planting and up the hill and over to the papaya grove. Ok, I’m thinking, maybe he inter-planted some new trees here. I look into the zone and don’t recognize anything new. I ask a few more questions, and he just smiles. I’m annoyed. Kind of frustrated. What the hell are we doing out here? I am not seeing what he’s wanting me to see. I don’t get it. He is still smiling, knowing how I can be when I don’t know what is going on. When I don’t get my way. “PLeeeeease,” I beg, “PLeeeeeeease tell me what we are doing out here?!??!” Still silent, he sits me down, and puts my hands on the earth. He smiles again and walks away. I don’t follow him. I know I can’t, but I don’t know why.
An hour later were having breakfast and I feel grateful and soft and not sure why. I am a nature lover. I am an activist. I know the earth and care for her. I am, I am, I am, I am so many labels, that I lose touch with being any of them. So often caught in the next thing, that I miss my own hands placed on the earth. I miss the abundant love pouring out of the dirt, saying yes to my life. Thanks to my traveling blanket, my husband so unwilling to feed my wild mind, and the precious moment always available to me, I had a small awakened opening this morning.
This morning, my husband wouldn’t leave me alone. He was insistent that I had 10 minutes to come outside. I, of course, wanted to know exactly what I would be doing and why it had to be now. He doesn’t say much in general, and even less when I ask these kinds of questions. “Just come,” he says. So I do, half-heartedly. I roll out of bed with a blanket still wrapped around my shoulders, trailing unevenly behind me in the dirt. My head is tilted to the side and my eyes looking up at him and we walk down the stairs towards the newest planting. I ask a few more questions, without answer, still dragging my fleece blanket. I’m sure he wants to show me how he has carefully planted some avocado trees and mulched them just so, and so I already have my response, prepared to gently stroke his ego about what nice work he is doing for us here. But we walk by the planting and up the hill and over to the papaya grove. Ok, I’m thinking, maybe he inter-planted some new trees here. I look into the zone and don’t recognize anything new. I ask a few more questions, and he just smiles. I’m annoyed. Kind of frustrated. What the hell are we doing out here? I am not seeing what he’s wanting me to see. I don’t get it. He is still smiling, knowing how I can be when I don’t know what is going on. When I don’t get my way. “PLeeeeease,” I beg, “PLeeeeeeease tell me what we are doing out here?!??!” Still silent, he sits me down, and puts my hands on the earth. He smiles again and walks away. I don’t follow him. I know I can’t, but I don’t know why.
An hour later were having breakfast and I feel grateful and soft and not sure why. I am a nature lover. I am an activist. I know the earth and care for her. I am, I am, I am, I am so many labels, that I lose touch with being any of them. So often caught in the next thing, that I miss my own hands placed on the earth. I miss the abundant love pouring out of the dirt, saying yes to my life. Thanks to my traveling blanket, my husband so unwilling to feed my wild mind, and the precious moment always available to me, I had a small awakened opening this morning.
Trees-Part One
Today I'm resting in something different than oil
Not as solid as steel
but at least I'm not flailing around the floor
one hand thrown down to catch my feet
splaying out at strange angles
I guess they say that the best love songs are born of pain
I don't have a love song
but this pain wants to birth something
wants to free itself
on highways of light and black ash
on airstreams of catch and release
I tried to scratch it off
dead skin cells wafting to the earth
but I awoke this morning
and it was raining in my room.
I’m not sure what I need from you.
I tell you I need you to heal
so I can have you back whole again
or at least partially whole
where I can fall into the fire of loving you again
I’m too scared now
I’m too old down roads of tress fallen and wires crossed
I need to see you
strong
The ceiling seems too low again
Like way too low.
I almost have to crouch to walk around our room
I want a ballooned up roof with tall windows floating
sailboats on the horizon
preparing to sail into a future I will have to imagine
I want to open my sail
float down this mountain of pain
landing where I do
soft trees underneath to catch my deep release
Not as solid as steel
but at least I'm not flailing around the floor
one hand thrown down to catch my feet
splaying out at strange angles
I guess they say that the best love songs are born of pain
I don't have a love song
but this pain wants to birth something
wants to free itself
on highways of light and black ash
on airstreams of catch and release
I tried to scratch it off
dead skin cells wafting to the earth
but I awoke this morning
and it was raining in my room.
I’m not sure what I need from you.
I tell you I need you to heal
so I can have you back whole again
or at least partially whole
where I can fall into the fire of loving you again
I’m too scared now
I’m too old down roads of tress fallen and wires crossed
I need to see you
strong
The ceiling seems too low again
Like way too low.
I almost have to crouch to walk around our room
I want a ballooned up roof with tall windows floating
sailboats on the horizon
preparing to sail into a future I will have to imagine
I want to open my sail
float down this mountain of pain
landing where I do
soft trees underneath to catch my deep release
Begin To Walk
Put your god loving feet on the ground and begin to walk.
I don't care where you walk to
not yet anyways
just place your sole down to kiss the rugged layers of soil
of rock
of lava.
Let it bite you.
Let it burn you.
Let it pierce your skin that you smell the blood you are walking on.
Walk until your feet are sure of who you are becoming,
until you can rest down the whole of your body,
close to your magnificent feet and know you are resting next to a god.
Wear shoes or don't
walk far enough that it won't matter anymore
bring water or don't
know thirst that no drink could ever quench
come with others, or all alone.
Either way you will know aloneness to the core of your bones.
Have you ever walked with no where to go to?
no reason to walk? no time to return?
Have you ever left not knowing when, and IF you will return?
I am thinking of the way we leave every day,
set out into our world of things to do and lives to ruin.
Of the way we live just outside of our own universe
orbiting around our own center
instead of standing in it.
I am thinking of the way the aboriginals made it essential
to take walkabout
when they needed to listen
for an answer
that was not yet ready to arrive
that we were not yet ripe
to hear.
I am thinking of the way turtles
get a bad rap
for going so slow.
I am thinking of my feet
and how lovely they are
and how much they know
things like what the earth tastes like when it rains
and how the stars feel when they explode
and what sounds the northern lights make
from deep down below it all
below the sun, below the moon
below the stones in my throat where a voice
is singing silently a new song
below my heart beating in my womb
a place yet to become a home
to another set a of feet
set down to this earth
to discover its own intimate dance
with solid ground.
I don't care where you walk to
not yet anyways
just place your sole down to kiss the rugged layers of soil
of rock
of lava.
Let it bite you.
Let it burn you.
Let it pierce your skin that you smell the blood you are walking on.
Walk until your feet are sure of who you are becoming,
until you can rest down the whole of your body,
close to your magnificent feet and know you are resting next to a god.
Wear shoes or don't
walk far enough that it won't matter anymore
bring water or don't
know thirst that no drink could ever quench
come with others, or all alone.
Either way you will know aloneness to the core of your bones.
Have you ever walked with no where to go to?
no reason to walk? no time to return?
Have you ever left not knowing when, and IF you will return?
I am thinking of the way we leave every day,
set out into our world of things to do and lives to ruin.
Of the way we live just outside of our own universe
orbiting around our own center
instead of standing in it.
I am thinking of the way the aboriginals made it essential
to take walkabout
when they needed to listen
for an answer
that was not yet ready to arrive
that we were not yet ripe
to hear.
I am thinking of the way turtles
get a bad rap
for going so slow.
I am thinking of my feet
and how lovely they are
and how much they know
things like what the earth tastes like when it rains
and how the stars feel when they explode
and what sounds the northern lights make
from deep down below it all
below the sun, below the moon
below the stones in my throat where a voice
is singing silently a new song
below my heart beating in my womb
a place yet to become a home
to another set a of feet
set down to this earth
to discover its own intimate dance
with solid ground.
Laundry and Crappy Food
I know these legs seem closed
I know you don’t trust me to follow through
these damaged pathways full of bones
to trip on
to make tense love erupt into pounding rains
I wish you could know the cave where my love imprisons itself,
could see how she decorates her walls...
happier chained to dishes and laundry and bags of boxed food
for another time....
happier in her own shadow
doomed to a life less worthy than your eyes
happier to be scraping the surface
than to let you in
knowing pain
keeping your entry into me at bay.
In your eyes
I know
you know.
It might be too late
but one doctor says its not.
One doctor says college and diplomas
and babies and a path not yet taken.
It might be too late
but one voice is singing softly in my cave
through the thick walls of pink and flesh
through the open wound left a year ago
too much blood for a regular period,
stolen from its mother in flight to this earth
she wasn’t ready for the human trip
she wasn’t wanting a body yet.
so she sings into mine
whispers in my dreams
that I am the one
doctor
and i’m the one
voice
and i’m the one
step
to be taken now
to be taken in a hurry
to be taken lightly
to be taken at all.
I know you don’t trust me to follow through
these damaged pathways full of bones
to trip on
to make tense love erupt into pounding rains
I wish you could know the cave where my love imprisons itself,
could see how she decorates her walls...
happier chained to dishes and laundry and bags of boxed food
for another time....
happier in her own shadow
doomed to a life less worthy than your eyes
happier to be scraping the surface
than to let you in
knowing pain
keeping your entry into me at bay.
In your eyes
I know
you know.
It might be too late
but one doctor says its not.
One doctor says college and diplomas
and babies and a path not yet taken.
It might be too late
but one voice is singing softly in my cave
through the thick walls of pink and flesh
through the open wound left a year ago
too much blood for a regular period,
stolen from its mother in flight to this earth
she wasn’t ready for the human trip
she wasn’t wanting a body yet.
so she sings into mine
whispers in my dreams
that I am the one
doctor
and i’m the one
voice
and i’m the one
step
to be taken now
to be taken in a hurry
to be taken lightly
to be taken at all.
Gretzky on Home Plate
Today I went by the old post office to get my mail, and as I reached in to grab the stash, I was handed a 4-leaf clover. Why you ask? Well, so did I. I was headed to the beach, so I grabbed my old rubber ducky filled with broken dishes from last nights rage, and dragged it in on down through town, gathering rocks and grass and the latest vampire novel, along with some discarded chocolate candies and compost.
That fucking ducky never felt so heavy. Just when I hit the sand I slid right into home base, legs first, without my helmet. 4-leaf clover in hand. Why the hell is Wayne Gretzky standing on home plate? This was beyond me, but at least he had a hockey stick and the bigmac and fries that I ordered. Thank god because I had never felt so hungry in a day. I jumped up into the press box looking for my fur coat and sandals that Donny Trump’s late wife had borrowed. Of course she forgot to leave them there as promised, so I was forced to head out to the bar, shoeless and mad.
After entering the Stoplight on 27th street, I started to get my groove back. All the fans wanting autographs and new watches were a bit much to manage, but one tequila two tequila and I was grooving on down to the wine cellar for a little bobbing apples. Who ever invented that game anyways? Whatever. Fuck it. Ill give it a go. Dunk my head down and pull back my lips exposing my teeth to the icy water, biting down on the mailman’s wrist. He swats and shouts through the bubbling liquid something about needing his mothers ring back, but I wont let go. I can’t. I need him more than my husband’s garden, and I need that big time. I bite and bite until the flesh softens blood into my stone mouth and there is nothing left to do but hold to bone and wait for revival.
Eventually we fall together backwards down the old stone staircase towards my grandparents house that burned in the fire. I always loved the woolen carpets that made my socks spark lightening flares in the house, and touching whoever I shocked. Their house was my house. Their house was my castle. The mailman dropped me off as he headed into the moss covered darkness. I crawled in through a memory of the old screened-in porch, tucked my head under the shadow of my nana’s arm, and slept my way into the night.
That fucking ducky never felt so heavy. Just when I hit the sand I slid right into home base, legs first, without my helmet. 4-leaf clover in hand. Why the hell is Wayne Gretzky standing on home plate? This was beyond me, but at least he had a hockey stick and the bigmac and fries that I ordered. Thank god because I had never felt so hungry in a day. I jumped up into the press box looking for my fur coat and sandals that Donny Trump’s late wife had borrowed. Of course she forgot to leave them there as promised, so I was forced to head out to the bar, shoeless and mad.
After entering the Stoplight on 27th street, I started to get my groove back. All the fans wanting autographs and new watches were a bit much to manage, but one tequila two tequila and I was grooving on down to the wine cellar for a little bobbing apples. Who ever invented that game anyways? Whatever. Fuck it. Ill give it a go. Dunk my head down and pull back my lips exposing my teeth to the icy water, biting down on the mailman’s wrist. He swats and shouts through the bubbling liquid something about needing his mothers ring back, but I wont let go. I can’t. I need him more than my husband’s garden, and I need that big time. I bite and bite until the flesh softens blood into my stone mouth and there is nothing left to do but hold to bone and wait for revival.
Eventually we fall together backwards down the old stone staircase towards my grandparents house that burned in the fire. I always loved the woolen carpets that made my socks spark lightening flares in the house, and touching whoever I shocked. Their house was my house. Their house was my castle. The mailman dropped me off as he headed into the moss covered darkness. I crawled in through a memory of the old screened-in porch, tucked my head under the shadow of my nana’s arm, and slept my way into the night.
Forgetting You
What if I can't do it? What if I'm just not cut from the fabric of "tough enough?"
I know I'm not supposed to say that, but I'm a realist, I'm looking at a lion calling it a lion, not a house cat. I'm thinking .... Get up right now, pack a bag of your favorite clothes and herbs, and walk. Dont forget some cash, and definitly bring the credit card, but only for emergency.
You see, this isn't really an emergency. I mean, a part of me says it is for sure, and I'm trying my best to give her every ounce of care and protection, but she's still on high alert afraid of being attacked in a dark alleyway from behind. And you know, i really cant blame her. She got attacked. It was violent and sudden, and ever since then, she has eyes in the back of her head, on guard and alert even in sleep. Some days I let her rule my house, sneaking around with the shades down, investigating the slightest sound, hating the attacker inside my house.
Other days, like this morning, I'm more sensible. More interested in the rest of my life, then the moment of disbelief when she throws the dish towel on the floor again, and waits for response from the crowd. More interested in my friends than her morning tirade of aggression and loud hateful words flung at her gentle dad. More interested in what I might study than helping her.
And I really tried. I mean, I really really tried to make this work. I sat through hours of family meetings where the hate grew thick, I had to stand up for myself at every turn, and everyone left feeling more angry, more defeated, more alone, more worried about the future of our life together as a family. I hung in there for endless nights of non-violent communication that almost always turned violent after I'd get caught in some weird sci-fi movie monsters head and end up believing her outrageous stories of who I am and what I had done. Her manipulation skills, finer than any adult I had come across, with the possible exception of her mother.
I, more interested in myself, than the seductive story of the the other woman moved right into my house.
The other woman thing......
You know, the one who circles around your man for a few months, maybe years, marking him, his truck, his home, slowly but definitly, until one day you wake up and she's taken over the passenger seat next to him and your sitting in the back, trying to hear their conversation.?
You know, the one who seems harmless enough because of work or sport that they share and it's good he has friends and does things with people other than you....it's good you can trust him that much when he goes on a camping trip with friends for the weekend..... Friends including her. It's good right?
Erin was definitly my first. My first love. My first sex. My first motorcycle ride. My first senior boyfriend ,( I was a freshman) and my first time a girlfriend slips in and becomes the other woman.
I'm not even sure she even meant to. At least that's what I came to tell myself 20 years later. He's a heart specialist now, a surgeon, a doctor. He knew he would become a doctor long before I met him. He was always sure , clear on his path. Which is part of why I trusted him so much. Trusted him more than my body. Trusted him more than my tightly closed vagina that repeatedly said no, no,I'm not ready. But you know when it's time...? When it needs to be time because even his mother has sat down with you and told you it's time, kind of time?
It was simply time if I wanted to keep him. And I did. He was the one. He was exciting and dangerous, took me over jumps that I thought I could never land. And you know, the truth is, I didn't land after she moved in.... Not for a lot of years. Not somewhere inside my steady heart that skipped beats whenever I would think about him and her. Whenever I would wonder what it was that she did better than me......what she had, that I didn't.
And don't we know that game is only a one way street riddled with grenades and holes to fall into , at every step. That question is one that should just be erased from the question bank. That question only leading in the wrong direction.
And the wrong direction was Erin. Though he would resurface years later when he had finally worn out that cool factor, when I had finally begun to let him go. And doesn't it happened like that? I'm finally done picturing us meeting up In a bar somewhere, rekindling that old flame, remembering the love, and heading home together forever.... Just when I've let it slip down the old memory tunnel where I don't climb in to flip through the pictures.... Just then, he appears. He picks me up at the airport because my mom is sick, because he lives right there, because he wants something. We dine and wine and massage and kissing turns into his bed naked penis again surprising me and I don't want him the way I thought I always did. I just don't. The trauma from my 15 year old body has not erased and I can not let him enter.
We kiss and hug and sleep and promise to stay in touch. He offers me riddlin and zanax and a few other small pills....in case I need help along the way. I don't,
but I smile and smush them in my pocket, knowing they will get forgotten into the laundry, washed into the system, to be left again in some small photo album that I will drop down the tunnel, that I will not climb in to look at.
Dance Me Jesus
jesus keeps appearing
so i asked him what he wanted
and he put his hands to the sky
and did the funniest dance i’ve ever seen.
she’s only happy in the sun...
went through my head
as i think of losing you
and the tight cave grows smaller around my clenched heart.
jesus didn’t question me
he came to pray with me
he didn’t come to shine light on my faults
he didn’t come to remove any sin.
he came to to wake me up
from myself
to dance naked with my magdalen belly.
to expose the scarlet letter on my chest.
to write the direction east, that I can not.
She’s only happy in the SUN...
really? is that true?
and so i asked him about career and kids and husbands and things that matter
and he kept dancing and smiling and watching me rip open my chest...
and the sun kept us warm at night,
and since he couldn’t answer the questions i needed to ask
i jumped in and started dancing ...
but once i began to shake my shimmy
he disappeared altogether,
he just evaporated.
He did whatever Jesus does when he sees that we’ve got it covered,
when he knows we’ve got the hint,
when he’s finally not the only one in the light.
Why is it hard to be who i am wanting to be?
Why does it seem easier to swim up stream
then to ride with the current?
perhaps because the view is familiar upstream
always struggling the current
the great wrestle
our way up a familiar path our parents took,
the steep climb with a bag of old rocks that we are too scared to put down...
the long road walked lonesome
by thousands of women
who knew she had brains
who knew she wanted more
who forged beyond her own instinctive nature
to care for everyone before herself
and arrived in her own garden
full of sage and marigold bouquets
adorned with the sent
of her own heart
not knowing why or how,
just knowing
that she had arrived.
so i asked him what he wanted
and he put his hands to the sky
and did the funniest dance i’ve ever seen.
she’s only happy in the sun...
went through my head
as i think of losing you
and the tight cave grows smaller around my clenched heart.
jesus didn’t question me
he came to pray with me
he didn’t come to shine light on my faults
he didn’t come to remove any sin.
he came to to wake me up
from myself
to dance naked with my magdalen belly.
to expose the scarlet letter on my chest.
to write the direction east, that I can not.
She’s only happy in the SUN...
really? is that true?
and so i asked him about career and kids and husbands and things that matter
and he kept dancing and smiling and watching me rip open my chest...
and the sun kept us warm at night,
and since he couldn’t answer the questions i needed to ask
i jumped in and started dancing ...
but once i began to shake my shimmy
he disappeared altogether,
he just evaporated.
He did whatever Jesus does when he sees that we’ve got it covered,
when he knows we’ve got the hint,
when he’s finally not the only one in the light.
Why is it hard to be who i am wanting to be?
Why does it seem easier to swim up stream
then to ride with the current?
perhaps because the view is familiar upstream
always struggling the current
the great wrestle
our way up a familiar path our parents took,
the steep climb with a bag of old rocks that we are too scared to put down...
the long road walked lonesome
by thousands of women
who knew she had brains
who knew she wanted more
who forged beyond her own instinctive nature
to care for everyone before herself
and arrived in her own garden
full of sage and marigold bouquets
adorned with the sent
of her own heart
not knowing why or how,
just knowing
that she had arrived.
Michael
I wear the diamond and the rubies most days. I took it off this morning and it's now sitting on the table across from the bed. I want to put it on, but my hands are so cold because it's literally 5 degrees below zero, and I simply can't pull back the clasp. The silver chain has a kink in it- has for years, and I like it that way. It tells a story of lives lived, imperfect and real. Damaged and yet still connected.
There are some chains I keep on purpose- some I don't want to break free from. Some that simply keep me safe, keep me from exploding into a thousand tiny nothings, keep me together as one something, as one person, with one story. At least the story is known, ya know. And so I'm thinking of chains and love and how we break each others hearts to the terrifying point of no return. To the point of broken. To the point where we begin to prefer to be chained to soemthing , anything, even if it hurts, then to be left hanging jagged in the wind. Yes, in case you're wondering, I'm visiting my family. It's crazy.... 5 days with them and I feel more love and joy and pain and grief than I feel in a years time, without them. I can not imagine a world with out them. I can not imagine a world without any last one of them. It simply wouldn't work for me. And the premature grief hits hard as I realize the only definite thing I can know about my family. I will lose them. I will lose all of them. Either by illness or accident, old age or young, a known loss or unknown and sudden.
I still remember the whole movie. When I got the news that Michael died. I remember the step I was on and how it sounded when I landed heavy with the phone glued to my ear. I remember the blue wooden floor that seemed so solid with its hundred year old creaks and cracks. I remember my dad telling me he was so sorry , and that feeling I had of sinking into the abyss , before he told me, that knowing exactly what had happened before he even said it. I remember how everything seemed to stop for a few minutes , a few hours, a few days.... as I Iit candles, wrote speeches, read old letters he wrote me, wondered how come I didn't stop it from happening.
Everything seemed to stop except for the intense knowing growing louder in my head that I was to blame, because if anyone could have stopped him, I could have. That if anyone could have helped, I could have. That if anyone should have been there, I should have. But the cold truth I swallowed was, ....I wasn't. I wasn't there.
Michael. I left you when you needed me. I left you when I wanted nothing but you. I left you because it was all I knew how to do. I left you because I needed you too much.
But I knew you knew. If anyone understood me, if there was ever a chance that anyone got me- it was you. It was always you. And I was inching my way towards you, though you couldn't see it. I was circling 'round the terrifying fields of being known in love, of being loved for no other reason than love itself. And then you left. And you really left. You left in a way that I never saw coming. You left in a way that keeps me undone 13 years later- dreaming you alive in the early hours before my husband is awake. Dreaming you so clear that I am sure I am not sleeping, never trusting anyone to know me like you did. Never trusting myself to love another.
So when it's broken that hard- so hard that I can see thru to the other side- how do I become whole again? How do I let another into the tender tissue of my most beloved organ? I don't know. I really don't . How the hell does one move on from that anyway? How do I learn to love again? And there's the tragedy right in the question! Love is not something that I learned how to do! It is something I came equipped with, came equipped as..Something closer to myself than myself.
Michael. I forgive you. I know you forgive me. Now if I can just forgive myself.
There are some chains I keep on purpose- some I don't want to break free from. Some that simply keep me safe, keep me from exploding into a thousand tiny nothings, keep me together as one something, as one person, with one story. At least the story is known, ya know. And so I'm thinking of chains and love and how we break each others hearts to the terrifying point of no return. To the point of broken. To the point where we begin to prefer to be chained to soemthing , anything, even if it hurts, then to be left hanging jagged in the wind. Yes, in case you're wondering, I'm visiting my family. It's crazy.... 5 days with them and I feel more love and joy and pain and grief than I feel in a years time, without them. I can not imagine a world with out them. I can not imagine a world without any last one of them. It simply wouldn't work for me. And the premature grief hits hard as I realize the only definite thing I can know about my family. I will lose them. I will lose all of them. Either by illness or accident, old age or young, a known loss or unknown and sudden.
I still remember the whole movie. When I got the news that Michael died. I remember the step I was on and how it sounded when I landed heavy with the phone glued to my ear. I remember the blue wooden floor that seemed so solid with its hundred year old creaks and cracks. I remember my dad telling me he was so sorry , and that feeling I had of sinking into the abyss , before he told me, that knowing exactly what had happened before he even said it. I remember how everything seemed to stop for a few minutes , a few hours, a few days.... as I Iit candles, wrote speeches, read old letters he wrote me, wondered how come I didn't stop it from happening.
Everything seemed to stop except for the intense knowing growing louder in my head that I was to blame, because if anyone could have stopped him, I could have. That if anyone could have helped, I could have. That if anyone should have been there, I should have. But the cold truth I swallowed was, ....I wasn't. I wasn't there.
Michael. I left you when you needed me. I left you when I wanted nothing but you. I left you because it was all I knew how to do. I left you because I needed you too much.
But I knew you knew. If anyone understood me, if there was ever a chance that anyone got me- it was you. It was always you. And I was inching my way towards you, though you couldn't see it. I was circling 'round the terrifying fields of being known in love, of being loved for no other reason than love itself. And then you left. And you really left. You left in a way that I never saw coming. You left in a way that keeps me undone 13 years later- dreaming you alive in the early hours before my husband is awake. Dreaming you so clear that I am sure I am not sleeping, never trusting anyone to know me like you did. Never trusting myself to love another.
So when it's broken that hard- so hard that I can see thru to the other side- how do I become whole again? How do I let another into the tender tissue of my most beloved organ? I don't know. I really don't . How the hell does one move on from that anyway? How do I learn to love again? And there's the tragedy right in the question! Love is not something that I learned how to do! It is something I came equipped with, came equipped as..Something closer to myself than myself.
Michael. I forgive you. I know you forgive me. Now if I can just forgive myself.
Two Worlds
I am caught between two worlds, which of them I belong to, not totally clear. I am caught up in worrisome thoughts about a future with infinite possibility. I Am caught by your story of who I'm supposed to be.
I am caught longing for a man that I don't know if I've met fully.
I have not always told you the truth, you know. Even when I have said that I wanted to tell you the truth, I was dancing silent lies into your prayer beads my friend. I was casting spells from my cauldron of pain. I was tracing bloodlines of color mixed with black, hoping you could heal me. You , my beloved , so trusting in me.... So trusting in one who has mastered keeping the truth even from herself....
Have given trust where it is not safe.
Have wound yourself around a lightening rod.
Am I safe? Is anyone safe? Many years ago, before the stories became too many to count and too convoluted to trust, I did trust. I trusted that all was well, that life was good, and that god was tangible. I didn't need to believe. I just did. But 30 years later, I am sitting in your living room, fire crackling behind me, and trust is a land far far away where magic creatures enter caves of light and swim away into pools of liquid gold.
Your living room where I spent years trying to tell you simple things.
Your living room where I gaveup my childhood, begging you silently to release her,
that it would free me too.
You, in your Your well worn captains chair where you told me how it was going to be, soothing my primal need to survive. And 30 years later, here we are, primal needs on the table, still too much pain to move forward on the path of marriage and divorce and blame and forgiveness. It is snowing outside, and I haven't been here with you in the winter for over 10 years. We used to love the winter..... You'd pull me out of school early on a big snow day, and take me up north to our favorite ski area. We'd spend all afternoon swishing and flying down the mountain..... Happy and free and lost. Lost in the way where you know you can't go wrong. Lost in the way that you never need to be found out. Lost , just for an afternoon. The stories a faint dream in the distance. And, of course, the distance ahead arrives eventually, and when that eventually comes, it is time to be found again, in our roles .... In our ways of caretaker and taken..... in our stories of silence and waiting.
I've been waiting in a castle across the sea for you . I ve been waiting for you to come. To see me in my life, where I'm not messed up, where I've turned coal into soil and ash into living blood. Where I have created my own castle, my own dragons, my own protector.
I am caught longing for a man that I don't know if I've met fully.
I have not always told you the truth, you know. Even when I have said that I wanted to tell you the truth, I was dancing silent lies into your prayer beads my friend. I was casting spells from my cauldron of pain. I was tracing bloodlines of color mixed with black, hoping you could heal me. You , my beloved , so trusting in me.... So trusting in one who has mastered keeping the truth even from herself....
Have given trust where it is not safe.
Have wound yourself around a lightening rod.
Am I safe? Is anyone safe? Many years ago, before the stories became too many to count and too convoluted to trust, I did trust. I trusted that all was well, that life was good, and that god was tangible. I didn't need to believe. I just did. But 30 years later, I am sitting in your living room, fire crackling behind me, and trust is a land far far away where magic creatures enter caves of light and swim away into pools of liquid gold.
Your living room where I spent years trying to tell you simple things.
Your living room where I gaveup my childhood, begging you silently to release her,
that it would free me too.
You, in your Your well worn captains chair where you told me how it was going to be, soothing my primal need to survive. And 30 years later, here we are, primal needs on the table, still too much pain to move forward on the path of marriage and divorce and blame and forgiveness. It is snowing outside, and I haven't been here with you in the winter for over 10 years. We used to love the winter..... You'd pull me out of school early on a big snow day, and take me up north to our favorite ski area. We'd spend all afternoon swishing and flying down the mountain..... Happy and free and lost. Lost in the way where you know you can't go wrong. Lost in the way that you never need to be found out. Lost , just for an afternoon. The stories a faint dream in the distance. And, of course, the distance ahead arrives eventually, and when that eventually comes, it is time to be found again, in our roles .... In our ways of caretaker and taken..... in our stories of silence and waiting.
I've been waiting in a castle across the sea for you . I ve been waiting for you to come. To see me in my life, where I'm not messed up, where I've turned coal into soil and ash into living blood. Where I have created my own castle, my own dragons, my own protector.
Arrested
It's 11 o'clock
I'm waiting for you
To fall asleep
So i can watch you sleep
Still in your world of heavy rest
I don't sleep when you are near
Arranging the flowers on my breath to soak you
Full of what I can not say.
Your chest moves to the right
More than the left
When you breathe in.
Did you know that?
Your hair is more blonde in the back
And your arm twitches a lot
When you sleep face down.
I never sleep face down.
I never let you watch me
With out knowing.
Did you know that it is 2 am?
Did you know that I can sing one song
And think another one?
Did you know that most people never feel themselves hit the ground,
when they fall from over 12 feet up?
Did you know your shoulders grow hair?
Did you know I've been watching?
I'm arrested next to you
My giant brown man.
I'm hibernating
Yet I appear awake.
You sleep silent dreams
of spinach and coconut palms and rare varieties of mango...
You rest in earth
And I, in sky....
In frozen flight,
In arrested love.
It's 11 o'clock
I'm waiting for you
To fall asleep
So i can watch you sleep
Still in your world of heavy rest
I don't sleep when you are near
Arranging the flowers on my breath to soak you
Full of what I can not say.
Your chest moves to the right
More than the left
When you breathe in.
Did you know that?
Your hair is more blonde in the back
And your arm twitches a lot
When you sleep face down.
I never sleep face down.
I never let you watch me
With out knowing.
Did you know that it is 2 am?
Did you know that I can sing one song
And think another one?
Did you know that most people never feel themselves hit the ground,
when they fall from over 12 feet up?
Did you know your shoulders grow hair?
Did you know I've been watching?
I'm arrested next to you
My giant brown man.
I'm hibernating
Yet I appear awake.
You sleep silent dreams
of spinach and coconut palms and rare varieties of mango...
You rest in earth
And I, in sky....
In frozen flight,
In arrested love.
