Month: January 2018

When I lie down

Upon my back

And the space

Between my ribs

and hip bones

Stands gaping,

My body finally feels

As bare and vulnerable

as my heart.

My pain on display

Like an art gallery

Filled with the works

Of an eager

young, new painter,

Awaiting validation.

And the space is

Just asking to be filled;

With fingertips to

Trace the curves,

Or compliments to feed it.

It is my home.

Familiar like a favorite book

With dog-eared pages,

A gritty turn with each;

And an inviting musty smell.

The story is

Exciting!

Full of accomplishments,

And adventures,

And despite the darkness,

A promise of

a happy ending.

It is a lie.

About dying.

And no one survives the end.

And despite knowing that spoiler

I will always read it again.

I realize that I am walking around

a living, breathing

open wound,

and it is not nice to look at.

It is bleeding,

and disgusting,

and revealing all the

muscles,

and tendons,

and fat inside.

It nauseates me, too.

It is everything I am not supposed to be.

And if you look away

in horror,

I promise

I will understand.

But there are those too

who reach out to me

despite it.

They look me in the eyes

and ask me simple questions

to distract me from

all the pain and

the ugliness inside.

They are not afraid.

Because they know that I

am going into shock

and if the wound does not kill me

that will.

They march into battle with me.

Always at my back.

They will never leave

a woman behind.

They are the brave.

The medics

who carry my limp body

from the battlefield,

all while dodging

bullets,

and explosions,

and capture

themselves.

They are the valley

where I rest

between my hard place

and my rock.

Yes, I am an open wound.

And I know it hurts

to see it,

but imagine please,

how it hurts me too.

And if you want to go,

that’s fine

not everyone has

a courage of this kind.

Because when the time comes

that I am again

deployed,

I need to know that I

am marching with

the ones

who cannot,

will not

be destroyed.

I used to collect my men

by boots beneath my bed

That’s two boots

for each man.

That tiny space filled up quite quickly

And then

I started making notches

on the bed posts

but those too

weren’t very tall.

Over the decades,

I’ve carried these fellas

In many sorts of ways

Slung over my shoulder

atop my back.

In tear stains upon my pillow cases,

and self-inflicted wounds.

I’ve wracked up heartaches

and harsh words

regrets

rolled eyes

and silent gestures

…and poems

I probably have a poem or two for each

and the words still seem to come.

It never gets old.

Every time

is like my first.

I haven’t got much left now

to show

But the number of times my heart stopped beating

and yet

I still survived.

Somehow,

despite all the violence

that hands can muster

they’re still outdone by words.

And like a fool

I return to the master

for another measly taste.

I’ve had my hair in many colors.

I’ve got tattoos

across the landscape of my flesh.

My skin lays atop me like a deflated balloon

because of the times

I’ve fed my pain to protect me

or denied myself the nourishment

I thought I did not deserve.

And no matter how I try to cover the marks they leave

You can see these men

all over me.

I would forget them all entirely

but they always return to haunt me.

So eventually,

I just kept them in a list,

That I put away for safe keeping.

And whenever I learn the name of the next,

I cross it out,

and simply write

“Just another battle scar.”

Because despite everything I will ever

learn about him

That is all he will become.

 

 

 

 

I fall in love

With myself

Again daily.

Like meeting your

One true love

With each new rising sun,

For the rest of your life.

I wake up with her each morning

And greet her with a smile.

I haven’t much

A memory

So every mirror glance

Is love at first sight,

Each time.

 

Its a Groundhog Day of sorts.

 

I hold her close

In bed,

And listen intently as she cries.

I’ll rub her arm gently,

And hold her hands

To keep her fingers warm.

I write her poems,

To remind her of how beautiful

She truly is.

 

She is my muse.

 

I find endless poetry inside of her eyes.

Her soul is a healing wealth springs.

 

She is my angel on earth.

I have witnessed her wings.

 

I see royalty within her,

Though she never notices her crown,

Despite its sparkling glory.

 

She is a warrior,

Fighting lions,

And nightmares,

And man.

 

She inspires me endlessly,

And I am in awe…

The way we sometimes finish

Even the hardest of days

Splendidly

By witnessing the sunset over water.

 

She gives me rest.

 

I am not alone,

Because she is always here.

 

I do not deserve her.

No one does.

 

This earth could never

Be good enough

For my goddess.

 

She is out of this world.

 

If you took dusk and dawn,

Oceans and mountain scapes,

Entire galaxies

And gods,

And added them up,

They’d be no match for her.

 

And despite my presence with her,

and her presence with my own,

She will forever be alone.

Because no one can ever be

Good enough for her.

And she will always be

too much.

 

This is her tragedy.

 

But it is for this reason

That she will spare heartaches for the masses,

Putting their needs above her own,

Because the most excruciating experience

Any soul could ever have

Is losing her as their love.

The most majestic scene I have ever witnessed

Was not a mama bear and her cubs

crossing my path at sunrise

Or breathing the crisp air

At 10,000 ft

Above earth

It wasn’t a meteor shower

From a grassy field

Late at night

All of these were breathtaking

Awe-inspiring

And will forever remain

Captured in my mind

But the most stunning

And delicate of sights

I have ever beheld

Was also one of the most excruciating moments

In another person’s life

It was that of life unfolding before me, through death

It was that of the unconditional love

From a daughter

For her dying mother

As she breathed

Her very last breaths

One Christmas night

As both she and I held

Her mother’s hands

Her daughter leaned down

To where

Their foreheads met

She closed her eyes

And in her silence

She granted permission

For her mother to go

I felt her anguish

Her love

And her letting go

I was as a fly on the wall

Invisible in the moment

But blessed with the honor

Of witnessing it all

And As I drove home from that scene

In the cascading

Consuming

Silence of the snow

I realized

That one of the most magnificent things we will ever birth

Is the capacity of our hearts

To love

And the potency of our pain

My neighbor and I have an

Unspoken communication

His is in the form of frantic ramblings

And mine is in the form of sobs

He follows cars into my driveway

To copy down the plates

For some covert operation

Of which, none of us are quite sure

But my presence always

puts him at ease

And I listen to his shouts

And rants

And I shrug them off

Because he’s my neighbor

And we’ve both got

Insanity

In common

There might not be much else there

But…

Its enough

And when my time comes to speak,

He falls silent

And allows me to say my piece

I speak with weeping through the night

When its the only way to get to sleep

Or when I wake up from a

Bad dream

Whenever I find myself riddled with despair

My crying is like a lullaby to him

This…

This, he understands

I needn’t say a word

Because we both speak the same language

Anguish

Grief

Regret

A pain that cannot be quenched

In this lifetime alone

I make space for him daily

And on the days or nights

I sing my lullaby

He stops

And listens

In a way that no one else

Can ever really muster

He stands captive

In awe

Of my opera