I unfocus my eyes, hold my breath, and shove down the grimy truth.
I can not seem to find the valve to release what some part of me knows.
I don’t muster up the courage to search.
I pull armor down over my most vulnerable parts, tucking away all the soft white underbelly of me.
Tear heavy eyes close to the pain held behind them
Anchors, weights to wait out evading sleep.
There will be no peace tonight with a dark heart in pieces,
Rendered to dust upon impact. When does the shattering end?
One step leads to the next. Turn and turn and find God has brought you to a parallel circle.
NOTHING is by accident.
It happens infrequently
The pulse of feeling
My mood ebbs and flows like the waves
But at its high the wave comes crashing
The rush of adrenaline destroying that in its path
It reaches the shore
Weaker
But enough for me to put pen to paper
And create
Feeling my fragile right now.
For every tempest that has tested my mettle, it has gotten
harder and harder to brave the outside.
Find me burrowing deeper into my shelters
where hopefully Earth will not also turn against me.
Never done well with surprises or being put on the spot.
Any deviation from day-to-day expectation forges opportunities
for fumbled confidence and faltering faith.
Find me cowering in the safe space of myself
where there is no more space for hurting. No growing either.
Always had a weakness to getting overwhelmed and overloaded.
Haphazardly explored conversation might explode anxiety
urging imposter syndrome into putting my brain into lockdown.
Find me there in my best isopod impersonation
and coax me gently back into living.
Emotional and spiritual trauma leaves scars, extra obstacles
I need to navigate in order to speak what’s truly on my heart.
Can you have the patience to wait out my process of healing?
Then find me
in the eye of the hurricane that bears your name.
Show me stable shelter and you will calm these wrathful winds.
Fear stalks me when I run along my favorite trail.
It walks by, tipping its hat and offering a sinister smile around mile 3–
the double-fenced part where there is literally no escape other than up and out.
My stride quickens once it disappears from my peripheral vision;
I can hear it change course, following me,
its footsteps stomping as it catches up to me
My fastest miles can’t escape its grip.
It reaches for me,
fingertips slipping along my sweat-streaked ponytail,
laughing while I try to shift my gait to an all-out sprint.
Its palm pulling me by one shoulder,
then the next;
All I can do is pray for the mile marker to change
But when I think I’m out of breath,
when my lungs are ready to give out,
when the fire burns in my chest from the extended effort
The fear drops pace,
hides itself along the forest’s edge
and I turn to face it,
but it’s gone.
A young mom with a jogging stroller sends a smile;
it’s obvious,
fear has not caught up to her
yet.
Nothing I could have said yesterday
would have caused my mom’s heart less ache,
so instead I swallowed my lackluster words
along with the brunch she made for us—
smashed avocado on whole-wheat toast,
topped with a peppered over-medium egg
and sliced golden cherub tomatoes—
healthy, since she is on a weight loss
accountability journey with me,
toeing the uphill mountain beside me,
cheering me on quietly
so as not to make too much fuss.
Glanced across the kitchen table,
my eyes met hers as we ate
in a heavy, humid June silence
darkened by a day thirty years ago,
when my mom said goodbye to her mom
for the very last time in an Atlanta hospital bed.
She held my gaze for a moment,
and I did my best to absorb
just an iota of her muted strength
and humble resilience over the past
three decades of being a mom
who’s forced to mother three girls
without being able to sit
across from her own mom
at the kitchen table,
peer into her soul for just a moment,
be bolstered by her Chanel No. 5-scented hugs.
Nothing I could have said yesterday
would have alleviated my mom’s pain,
so instead, I wrapped her in a hug,
thanked her for brunch,
washed the dishes
and hoped to God that Mom
senses me walking daily her own journey
of loss by her side, holding her hand,
squeezing back into it gently
that iota of strength I’ve inherited
from my mom and the one
who raised her to love me
just like the song we have passed down:
a bushel and a peck
and a hug around the neck,
never failing to support me,
as now I’m praying she intuits
from all the words I chose not to say.
