Posts for June 4, 2022 (page 2)

Up in mom’s attic I found 
our childhood clothing
Patched and holey from mousebites 
worn thin in places
telling the story of how we survived
on the farm

(2 boys, 2 girls,
weeding the garden
picking the cherries
strawberries so 
mom could can jam.
Raised on pond fish
and wild game 
results of dad’s hunts.)

Textiles too precious 
to let slip
Baby Renee’s faded floral dress,
little Ryan’s tattered red bomber
and Geranimals striped velour shirt.
Ralph’s ragged jeans

The gem of the salvage

2 one piece jumpers
size 3
And later discovering photos
there clothed with the very same sweet poly garb
stands a grinning toddler me.

My home will be wallpapered 
with photos of every happy memory
I have managed to hold onto.
They will cover every square inch of the place,
spilling over onto the floor and ceiling
when I run out of room.
I will overlap them,
stacking them as high as they can go
until I have a record of every bit
of the life I used to love,
pushing in on me tight enough
to squeeze the present out of my body
and suffocate me so that I may return
to where it all began.

When I listen to music,
I always start the song over
before it is finished,
never wanting to actually make it to the end–
to move on.
I would listen to the scratch on a record
forever,
as long as it’s stuck on my favorite part.
Willingly held prisoner in the dust and scratches
that decorate the grooves,
so familiar and comfortable 
they feel more like trophies than scars
or imperfections. 

My life is a love letter
to the girl in the photographs
that will one day cover the walls of my present,
to the girl trapped in one note of music
with no desire to get out.
The letter reads 
“I miss you
with every beat of my heart.
I would go back in time and never return
just so I could be you again.”

“Easier to buy a gun”, she said.  
Around the corner, down the street. 
Easier to buy a gun.
Right now, she could buy one.  
She can buy a gun. 
Milk for her child,
formula,
she can’t
find. 

It’s not fair that I still love you
That I’ve been taught to give my all while you give nothing.
I sit and wait
you pick and choose whether I’m something you want 
Your decision from one day does not carry over to the next

It’s not fair that I do everything I know how to for you
Everything I know
From helping with homework to braiding hair
and loving these kids that are not my own

Somewhere along the way your family became mine
permanent fixtures in my world  

And somewhere along the way
While I was busy with the homework and the braiding
The loving with my whole heart and working two jobs to support us both
Somehow
as they became more to me, I became less to you.  

you grew distant
cold
Did you not know you were ripping my soul into pieces? 
you were completely unaware of what you were doing to me
That you were breaking me.
Maybe you just didn’t care.

A person can only forgive so much
and hope that things will get better for so long

before you know it, you’ll look up and realize,
you can’t remember the last time you heard the words
“i love you” 
And you’ll give up.

She scratched the inside of her wrist
While listening to bees buzz
And watching a butterfly dance

On a distant flower
Yellow. 

there’s something about
those foggy summer days 
with billowing white clouds
against deep blue sky
leaves green and shaking
in an unfelt breeze
where everything in me
is telling me that I need
to be doing something

but I’ve been doing something
for so many days
making sure the kids are fed
and they’re not afraid
of whatever false thing lives
under the bed
with laundry and clutter
all coming down in heaps

so when a day like this hits
a clean house illuminated
by only the sun coming 
through the windows
and in spite of the heat
it’s ice cold 

when the person
who fixed me
without trying
is on the couch
it’s hard to find
a reason
to raise my head
from her lap
and go do anything
anywhere

the play
we’re all participating
can take a day
without me

Flying out of town

While my tank sits on empty.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt more lost.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt more confused.

Mind numbing thoughts of the abuse.

I’m older now,

I should be able to let go.

The only time I think I’ve ever felt peace

Is on the open road.

The song changes,

It’s a familiar tune.

Now all my thoughts lead directly to you.

I feel the sun warm my skin,

Knowing you’re coming home again.

The only other time I think I’ve ever felt peace

Is when it’s just you and me,

Tangled in your bedsheets.

Don’t ask me to shrink
To keep myself in a tidy little box when you’re done pulling me out
My box is big and messy and thick with the ambrosia of love and the stench of rotten promises and confusion

Don’t ask me to shrink
To hide myself
When our moments of physical nakedness and awkward sexuality
Make you suddenly blush and avert your friendship

As if our emotional and spiritual shine for each other were something new
As if our heat didn’t grow in the soil of deep-rooted warmth and security 
As if our bond were the brackish water to be discarded with a bouquet of dissipating whim for physical intimacy

There is no fig leaf big enough to cover
The fullness of who I am
Or even the pieces I’ve shown to you
(And others that I kept barely hidden)
Or of what we were beginning to share together
That shook your vision of who you were
And so you looked away.

Our relationship has thrived on kindness through awkwardness and silences and bald truths and raw emotion
Our bond has strengthened through vomit and piss and other inconvenient realities
Ironic that a few kisses could crumble what vomit and piss and inconvenience couldn’t

Don’t ask me
To become less bursting with love and invitation and desire to be with you
To not feel a little sad and panicky to know you want to be far from where I am
But somehow you have
And I have
And it’s all perfectly okay
And perfectly polite
And awfully constricted
And perfectly inadequate

Why do I like it better