The weather...

Radar Loops: Snow

I casually turned on the television today and found myself anxiously wading through just one more commercial for the latest computer model of
The first winter storm, heading our way.
I could hear those words you used to make me upset and even knowing the tricks I didn't change the channel.
It made me a little disgusted with myself.

I'm holding on,
Holding tight,
Listening for that musical note that resounds in my soul.
I've become convinced that something will strike me profoundly,
The light from heaven will sing through the blue sky
And I will kneel with a clear picture,
Vision,
Understanding.
In this romance I gain something I don't know I've lost quite yet and for this I will
Be grateful.

No matter how hard I try to look away and create distance my
Eyes are drawn to the window, my feet to the door,
To smell for snow and ice. Between turning on and turning off my television I developed an
Obsession for the weather and how it will impact my person.
Frantic wind and driving rain don't fit into my expectations,
Leaves me confused and doubtful.
I am stubborn in my refusal to adapt. I know with certainty that tomorrow I will turn on the television.

Positive thoughts

Since I have the illusion that somewhere, someone is reading this little thing of mine, I also have the delusion that people might like what I have to write. Or how I write it. Or something like that.

I've combined my delusions with my addiction to making myself miserable by submitting poems to various contests/journal submission calls. So far, NADA. I haven't even gotten a rejection letter. Apparently, they aren't in style anymore. Icy silence seems to be the way of disregard.

I digress.

Ok. No rejection letter, no acceptance either. I know, I'm crazy anyway. I keep blocking out which places I have submitted, what I submitted, and when the deadlines pass. To keep some degree of organization, I keep all that info in a handy word doc. That word doc has kindly reminded me that end of year deadlines are creeping up. And I wonder how much hope to have in the next 2 -3 months that somewhere a journal wants to publish something of mine.

All this is really just an exercise in failure. My therapist could probably talk your ear off for at least 2 hours going on about my failure related issues. How I've failed myself, how I have failed others, how I set myself up to fail, how others have failed me.... blah, blah, blah. The thing is, I actually expect to be rejected.

I think I'd rather have a cold rejection than icy silence.

I have to go now. My computer is trying sooooo hard to keep cool. I can hear it's little fan groaning. That also means that my screen is anywhere from 1 letter to 20 behind me as I type. It's damn irritating.

Topeka

When I hear the word, or think of the place, my stomach knots up and starts to drop away.
At some point in every week, I wonder if I'm making the right choices, doing the right things, if I am actually a good person.
Topeka makes me sick because I know I wasn't right or good there.

And yet it has brought me here. I am happy here, but I can't reconcile it with the path that brought me.
I can't accept the evil that flourished in me, in Topeka.
I can forgive myself for not meeting my own ideal,
But I cannot forgive falling so far short of it.

The forces in my life, then, came together in a particularly ugly way, but I can't see that as anything but an excuse. I should have been better.

But better might have taken me someplace else.

I know too intimately what I am capable of. My stomach knots in a desperate urge to deny everything.

No matter how hard I try, it makes me sick to think of it.

Fall is my favorite season

Black Tea in the Afternoon

I sipped hot tea while I stood at the living room windows and admired the industriousness of my neighbors.
There they were, with rakes and black plastic bags, corralling that riot of yellow, orange, red, and brown into slowly shifting piles.
I thought about how I should grab my rake and lend them a hand.

It's not really cold enough yet to sip hot tea throughout the day but I don't adjust well.
I'm fairly convinced it should be cold outside, and so my feet freeze even if it's moderately warm.
Sighing in resignation of this, I put down my tea and dug my rake out of the garage.
I raked and piled, shifted and herded, until most of the color disappeared into my bag.
I worked down a bit from the rest of the crew, until the very end.
And then, as we stood around making small talk, I had to turn my back to the wind.
Polite chatter filled the air as the temperature made itself felt, the rain began to fall, the wind blowing through the trees.

So I sipped hot tea while I stood at the living room windows, watching the trees rain a riot of color onto the sidewalk.
I smiled to myself when the street was obscured again.

Thoughts in a quiet car.

Coming Home

I am driving purposefully, hands placed at ten and two
Just as they taught me, in those ridiculously outdated metal machines,
Using reel to reel film showing little blond boys darting across the street.
Each time I turn to check my blind spot I feel a stab in my chest,
But I keep checking, looking forward, behind to the side;
After all these years I cannot help myself.
I judge the lane position of other cars, watch drivers make poor decisions
And each judgment pulls me down from the center.
Yet, I am so thoroughly engrossed that I missed my turn and now
Must go the long way around.

A sense of sadness.

I wanted to write this great poem about my week, but it just couldn't come together for me, so I guess I'll ramble on about it instead.

It was my birthday. I turned 29. No big deal, I guess. I was a little surprised that I wasn't in my thirties yet - I feel older. At least 31. A huge part of me wanted to hide away and quietly accept the day and move one. So I skipped the concert I was planning to attend, kept my day busy with small interactions. At the end of the day, eating a cake with unlit candles on it, reading a book I had really wanted, it all hit me.

It was my tenth birthday with a dead mom.

I want to say "without a mom" but the truth is that her death and resulting absence is just as profound as her life. I had a mom. For a time. Then she was gone. And her death was ugly, merciless, long, and leaves me with a complex set of emotions I barely understand. So I sat there, and I ate the cake someone else's mom made for me, and I tried to be grateful that there was a mom who wanted to make me cake. Sisters who wanted to celebrate with me. Friends who wanted to say hello. And a part of me was.

But knowing... ten birthdays, missed. And the list will grow. I may even live long enough to have more birthdays with a dead mom than with a living one. Macabre, eh? And. Oh how sad it makes me.

I feel tired, wounded, lost in this ache.

This year I said: I don't want a big thing next year. Sure, it'll be 30 years. But that's ok.
I hope everyone listens. I hope they could understand. Seeing them all, gathered together to celebrate, helps me remind of the one person who can't join us.

I'd rather be sad quietly than out loud.

Herb Garden in Bloom

I wilt under the pressure of my own potential.
In a long awaited summary: I am the end of my own self.

I suppose this conclusion has some nodding their heads,
Thinking: well, of course, we knew all along, it was obvious.
As I nod along with them accepting my fate.
Sometimes, in moments that seem a little too quiet,
I wonder how it would feel to take so much power into myself that
I could step over the edge towards the end.
In those moments, it does not matter that I am willing to patiently wait for the end to find me.

I watched the chives I planted years ago sprout again in the spring,
Growing taller and more robust for it's neglect.
As fall came upon us the flowers went to seed, gradually giving way to the pull of the earth
And when I brushed by them on some important errand I could hear the seeds pitter-pat to the ground.
With bowed heads the plant shaded those precious seeds and I could almost hear the whispers of encouragement.
I brushed by them again, just to hear the sound as the fell and then it reminded me of sleet against the window
In wintertime.
The air is cold and damp and I am sad for those seeds and that plant, because they
Fell from the raised herb bed and onto a wooden deck; there is no dirt to root in.

Children's book assure me that some of them will make it, somehow, because that is
The nature of these things.
There is hope in there, somewhere, and so
I scatter my words along as
I nod my head.

One more thing I didn't get from my parents

Marc just mentioned to me last night that Google is asking folks to stop using the word as a verb, it is a noun. I wonder if they had parents like mine, who could turn any word into a verb.

I apparently lack this skill, as I tried to think of an example of this phenomenon. Without using "google," of course, because that's been done.

Sometimes, I google your name.

I Haven’t Lost You

When I think of you a part of me goes very quiet inside, as if in some kind of sacred remembrance, though
I know I don't feel it and you don't deserve it.
I wish it would be as easy as placing a phone call and saying "I was just wondering how you are, if you wonder about me from time to time."
I'm trying to remember what is the truth and what is the lie in my history and I can't quite
Sort it out. I've been wondering if you could help me with that.

When I think of you a part of me pauses, as if I have sprinted to the top of a mountain, though
I know I can't feel that again and you are long gone.
On really bad days, I can feel the hint of a tear forming and I quickly cut it off;
I refuse to cry for either of us or those times again.
We were so quick to move away we never gave ourselves a reasonable opportunity to love.
I know; we couldn’t then.

When I think of you a part of me slows, as if lethargy is taking me over, though
I know we are distant now and the spell has been broken.
I’m still pulled down by your abandonment, the way you stripped me of my strength.
How I’ve changed since you had any power; I’m still afraid of succumbing.
I keep thinking of you.

Quick moments, happy ones or bad ones, stolen from something else.
I keep thinking of me, and how I’ve grown and of how you would still recognize me anyway.
I’m secretly relieved you have stayed lost to me.
I don’t want your memories, mine carry me away quite adequately.
Lies are just the truth you choose to believe, and so I think that all memory is suspect.

I wonder if you wonder about me from time to time. I wonder if a part of you reacts at all.
If you do, you should know my heart hurts a little every time you cross my mind.
How I loved you in my own way.
How you loved me in yours.

Hiding

And how true: "Like a coward, I write this hoping you will see it and understand."

From Now to the End

I've been yearning for the past lately.
Like a long forgotten addiction, it has caught me off guard and left me feeling defensive and defenseless.
To be honest with myself, every day I wish for something from some time before, but this has been different.
I've been wishing for things I had thought I had left behind somewhere, and with good reason.

While you and I were talking tonight I wanted to actually talk. I wanted it to be like it used to be, late night conversation about the importance of
Life.
But I was a little drunk and a lot afraid and couldn't find the words to say.
Like a coward, I write this hoping you will see it and understand.
It made me realize that I am afraid. Afraid of losing you.

You see, my feelings have changed. I used to think that I would be in love with you forever but
I was wrong.
You are dear to me, important, and I miss you every day you are not here. But
We've moved on.
That's ok with me, now.
Except.
I am afraid.

I want us to have a present and a future, and not one based on reminiscing about the past.
I want us to have more than stupid jokes that have been said so often we've forgotten the original laugh.
I wish we had more than stolen moments together, like friends who
Just love, who haven't
Lived through fire together.

If you happen to be wondering...

Maybe this little dialogue can somehow sum up a few things in my life right now.

Ari, holding up the food she mooched off me: “What’s this?”
Me: “What does it taste like?”
Ari: “Potato.”
Me: “That’s right. It is potato.”
Ari: “Is it a potato chip?”
Me: “Nope. It’s a fry. A french fry, only cut into a waffle shape. So they call it a waffle fry. It’s made out of potatoes.”
Ari: “Why isn't it made out of waffles?”
Me: “Then it wouldn't be a fry.”
Ari: “It would just be a waffle.”
Me: “Yes.”
After a contemplative chewing moment, Ari muttered: “Pancake!”

Oh yes, my friends, she is only 3. And this was a real conversation. I almost fell off the couch laughing at "Pancake!"

Fly Away Thing

I've been thinking a lot lately. It's got me all tangled up inside,
As this thinking has blown me from place to place.
I can see dark roads twisting through starlight calling me away home.
We were sailors loosed on ribbons of asphalt, not worried about such mundane things as the money to pay for gas,
As we weaved our way along.
Each deep breath carries the smell of coffee and burning nicotine and acts as some kind of
Balm.
And I’m so tangled up inside I barely make sense to myself, and
I know the context of the message.
Every time I think I’ve left those days behind they sneak back up on me and
Give me back a piece of myself.

Indestructible power, Activate!

I just read an article from CNNMoney.com, and I wanted to share. I encourage all of you to click the link http://money.cnn.com/2006/10/17/commentary/mediabiz/index.htm?cnn=yes

and give it a chance. Seriously, I'm asking you to do this. Then in a month from now I can say "Garbage disposals don't chop off people's fingers..." and one of you can pop back with "People chop off people's fingers." Doesn't that prospect alone make you want to click the link?

Click on it. I Dare Ya.

Garbage disposals, Menace: fact or fiction?

Frustrations

The words are still all jammed together in my head and it makes me very tired. It's a lot like this:
You've got 1.5 hours to sit with an old friend to catch up and remember that someone loves you so completely. Then the plane leaves, taking them away again for some undetermined time. You got on the road late, because the phone rang with another distant crisis, the dog ate the last pop-tart, the trash was overflowing, the garage door wouldn't open, you just couldn't quite get going. So you rush. You speed anywhere you can, you wonder if you should call and tell your friend your late, you just hope and pray and will that you'll make it in time - with enough time. Then highway traffic locks up. So you take the next exit ramp, plotting a course in your mind that you know will help you arrive faster despite the street lights and school zones. And when you finally make it, there is no place to park. Not even a bad spot, just no spot. So you circle frantically hunting for someplace to stow this cursed vehicle that is just holding you back until - there! Grab your stuff, run inside.

In the end, there's enough time for a quick hug and goodbye again. And it's not enough, but it has to be enough because there is nothing else.

It's kind of like that, this word jam in my head. I've been writing this last week and a half but it's not enough. Not good enough, smart enough, flows well enough... but there is nothing else. The beautiful words I want to use to explain everything just don't come together right.

Moments like this make me wish I had the capacity to truly growl.

In some kind of effort to hold the line, I toss this little piece out. It's older, and probably doesn't say what I want or wanted at the time.

Sanity

Quiet space is a foreign place
And peace is farther than I can reach for the
Clamoring in my brain.
I hear people around me and none of it makes sense for the voices in my head.
Dancing pink dragons distract from reality until the only peace I can conceive is blindness.

Fortune has taken turns chuckling at my failures
And I learn grace as I dodge streams of fire that curl my eyelashes.
Emptiness is something I carry yet do not know
And like those filled with a madness sense, I question the voices in my head; their mere existence, and their truth.

******
And yet, while I read this, I believe that is some sort of masturbatory crap; just stroking my own faults, inconsistencies, and mental ill-health.

In case you're wondering, I keep typing because I'm hoping it scares whatever is killing my muse and let's me be free again.

But I hear Gene Eugene singing 'Stone' - which means so many things to me I can't even begin to approach it. If you've never heard of the band Adam Again, take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Again

I shall leave you with a better crafted piece. After all, if you slogged through all of this, you ought to get something decent out of it.

Perspective

I remember walking along an overpass in a city where I once lived. I remember the cold, and the wind, and the dark.
I remember being so weary that a nap, right there on the sidewalk with the broken glass and shreds of paper, seemed like a gift.
But that was a long time ago. I've left it behind. I've moved on.

If I could go back and gather the pieces of myself from all the cities, at each overpass, I might understand a little better, though I'm not sure what it is I would understand.

As a child I played those guessing games, trying to figure out what the real picture was under all the noise. Eventually, I got really good at putting it all together.
But those were simple concepts, and life is rarely simple.

Darkness is an interesting thing. It breathes, feels, reacts. It exists out there, and in here. And sometimes I find myself reaching towards that quiet dark, even though I know that once I've wrapped myself in it's safety, it will seethe with pain.

I remember a house, near a creek, with flowers along the front and grapes along the side. I remember something else, too, but I don't know what it is. I spent time in those rooms, creating things, and I wonder if someone looks at the paint I applied to the walls or the glue I dropped on the floor and feels the way I did.

I trust what I know. I trust what I feel. Sort of.

I am an antique porcelain doll, whose dress is frayed and filthy. I speak volumes. Mostly, no one hears.

It's been a week

...and the creative thoughts are all dammed up in my head. They'll shake loose -eventually. It's been known to take awhile, though.

I'm feeling pretty distant from myself right now, and that makes the words seem all confused. I wish I had a cookie.

The other night, I drove to a gas station at 12:30 am to buy microwave popcorn. It was darned tasty, too. I was proud that I didn't buy a chocolate cake like product and eat it on the way home in the car. Small accomplishments, I suppose.

Feeling fractured and so completely uncomfortable with myself.

Grrrrrr.

Days like today I miss everyone I care about and I wish you could all just pile in and eat some popcorn with me.

Just dropping by.

Changing From a Reluctant Product

i.
The rain never came today.
When I stepped outside to check on the caterpillar making a home in my parsley plant, it felt like the sticky humidity of early summer;
I ran back inside.
With the windows closed tightly and the doors barring the way I can agree with the calendar that tells me it is Fall again,
Again.
Circles inside mazes inside darkness - when I close my eyes it makes me feel dizzy.

The haunted house around the corner employs a spotlight that you can see flying down the highway towards home.
Apples are everywhere, and they taste good, too, reminding me that sunshine made them ripe.
When I wake in the morning I want my Fall cup of tea - not too hot, I'm not freezing just yet.
But then summer came back and knocked on the door.

ii.
I don't believe I have ever transitioned well.
I loved all of you that I abandoned, in my way and time and I miss you every now and again.
If I had been different it all could be changed but the point is that I always felt too different from you all.
A parade of faces and names marches through my head and I wish I could arrange it so you all could meet each other and perhaps understand better my failings.
A train of ghosts making merry with anecdotes and corner whispers, as if you cannot speak ill with the dead.

Every now and again I miss each one of you, profoundly, and I regret the choices I have made.
In my imagination, I believe that you feel that same way.

iii.
I've started preparing for the cold, bracing for the wind.
My cedar infused thinning cardigan is calling for me to wash it clean again,
Again.
Soon I can justify baking things, filling the house with moist, fragrant heat, making it smell like home.
Turkeys are waiting to be purchased and gifts to be brightly wrapped
And the thing I love most is that it brings us together as we look to each other to chase away the cold.


*****

I thought I'd let you all know that you can comment on anything here. I do appreciate critique - as long as it's preceded by a ton of flowering compliments.

And it all goes back to childhood....

Cardboard Filing Boxes
It is the chaos I find most difficult to survive. If only
Every day
There was a place to go for a little quiet. If only
Every day
I could take an afternoon nap.

I have a few dreams, and in them I aspire to bring myself all together into one thing.
To tie it all in means to cry a little, on average, to feel all of that again.
I'm not sure I will ever be strong enough. I don't think I want it in that
Impossible to ignore driving force kind of a way.
Part of my challenge is complacency.

I have left my life in Hansel and Gretel like pebbles behind me, and I am still waiting for the moon to rise and show the way home.
As I stare at the fire in the woods, I wonder what figure in my life led me here and
Why I walked so willingly along the way.
Sometimes I am half convinced I was born into this place, with all those chapters closed in the distance, and that sums it all up in a language I almost understand.


******
I actually reread "Hansel and Gretel" so that I could make an accurate reference. If you wish to reread as well, check this out: http://www.mordent.com/folktales/grimms/hng/hng.html

Sometimes it makes me bleed

Somehow I had forgotten the risks associated with sharing. Today I realized that a few of my poems are floating around out there for anyone to see and I panicked a little.

Once upon a time I wrote poetry in secret. I didn't start that way, but when They (my parents, my teachers, my friends) got a hold of some poems They started freaking out. They saw death and destruction and chaos and told me to get over it. They told me that nothing I had experienced was really all that bad. They taught me that in order to purge my mind I had to hide it away. Typing this, I realize that a part of me hates Them with pure white righteousness.

For a very long time, no one read my work and offered me a hug.

I grew up a little and gained better control of my own life and I started to share more often. I remember a time when an awesomely talented friend would sit on my back porch with me, chain smoking, while we read out loud our poetry. Those nights were some kind of literary magic because it was all accepted with such simplicity. I miss those times of sharing. To you, my literary friend, I say "I want to hear some more of your poems. I love your vision."

So, yes, today I panicked a little. I wondered what people are thinking of me when they read this stuff. I wondered how I could possibly keep moving on knowing that someone somewhere out there knows a secret about me. A part of me is absolutely terrified to let go. I'm becoming convinced that part will always live on. I berate all of Them for teaching me to hide myself, to be ashamed.

I used to deliberately cut open my skin and watch the blood well up. To feel something, to touch reality, to know I was more than my broken mind, to calm and soothe my soul. I used to drink quietly, locked in my bedroom, until it was all I could do to climb into bed to sleep.

Panicking about this blog seems ridiculous now. I'm really good at minimalizing everything. It's a learned talent.

Lewis Carroll to the rescue

Hey there. I've been struggling a bit with writing lately. I've written a few things, but they were pretty awful melodramatic crap. I kind of like this one, though, so I thought I'd share.

Children's Literature
"'And what is the use of a book' thought Alice 'with no pictures or conversation.'"
-Lewis Carroll

Again, it seems to be all about you.
In my dream today you were living, but only barely.
You were sinking faster than I could imagine despite knowing you were already gone.
My reality fades a bit under such pressure until I am half convinced I'm living in my own poorly written novella.

One of my big secrets is that I used to play pretend after I crawled into bed.
I would be turning to the left, bouncing my leg, humming under my breath
Until I settled into a fiction that required me to lay still.
I would imagine playing some car crash victim, comatose, surrounded by people praying for me to wake up
As I would fall asleep in some imagined quiet.
I wish that I could say that I played the heroine, but no heroine waits quietly for something and besides
I was never the heroine type.

Sometimes I close my eyes and for just a moment it all slips away and I am something
Different.
Where do you run,
What haven is there for someone who's imagination lures them from reality?

I have always wondered why I felt so radically different from everyone else.
I was the only 11 year old I knew who thought about things like last will and testament.
For a lifetime my grasp of reality has felt tenuous and brief.
And yet I function, almost daily, in this world written by someone else.
The horror makes me wish I could cry out more often with explosive release
But such profound simplicity escapes me.

And it's all about you,
Or all about me,
Or all about where I went wrong on this page.

*********

I was considering the title "Down the Rabbit Hole" but this line from the book seemed rather appropriate. I might change the official title, but it seemed a little redundant after using the quote. And while I am trying to 'grow' my poem titles a little, the whole quote seemed a little long.

Unless you knew me way, way back when my titles could be longer than the poems themselves. Don't worry, it's a phase that has come and gone. Good riddance.

Unpredictable nature of this thing

So in an attempt to keep myself focused on my writing, I've been submitting to the occasional contest. It's an interesting experience. Sometimes the process leaves me inspired while other times I vow to never write again. And that's completely discounting the fact that so far I haven't actually won anything. Just going through the old poems, trying to familiarize myself with them again is meaningful in some weird way. It's like meeting an old friend - love 'em or hate 'em.

'Found' this one today, and I remember it quite fondly, so I decided to share:

Change
Oct 2001
Rolling hills and green grass
Changing under the force of the cold;
I pull my coat on again, find a nickel covered in grime, an empty cigarette pack, and a piece of paper that seemed important a year ago.
It's the same coat I've worn for four years and it's seen better days
But it' warm and soft and comfortable and reminds me of a time different from this.

I'm cold all the time. I seek out a cat to sit on my lap or the dog to cuddle with, borrowing the warmth they radiate.
They all sense trouble; the bird is quieter, the cats are near, the dog is calmer and even the fish seem to want to hibernate.
I wonder what they must think when despite the furnace and well furnished rooms the house still chills and there is no escape.
I try to be like them: calmer, quieter.

It's a sleepy life now. Yesterday was full of anger and pain. Peace is but a memory I don't remember anymore.
I hide in words and pictures, seeking comfort and oblivious ignorance.
I want to cut myself open to see if I still bleed, to bleed out the disease I carry.
I want to sleep until it's warm again, like a bear, and if sleep takes me I would understand.

Life got all turned around again. Life keeps changing and I can't seem to change with it.
It reminds me of driving down a highway, hopping from town to town, when radio stations fade out on the dial and it takes 20 miles to realize the silence in the car is so pure.
Echoes haunt me, keep me awake at night, asking me for understanding.

I lost myself a while back. All the towns seem the same now. All the days are just reflections of one another.

I can't find a new radio station. And I'm so cold all the time. And my illness will carry me away in torrent of agony and suffering.

I'll leave little notes behind: don't forget to feed the animals, don't forget to change the station, don't worry - I took a coat.

Little surprises

I was fortunate enough to make it to one of my favorite bands last night; Over the Rhine was playing at Blueberry Hill. As they promised, it was an evening of acoustic music and conversation. Marc even got a nod from Karen after saying a clever remark just loud enough.

This piece got started there.

Friday Night Show

I was listening closely, trying to take it all in and hold on for a little while.
I was having a fantastic time, just hanging out and not thinking too much about all those other things
Kids
Dog
House
Car
Life
It was an oasis of present tense.

And then the music went deeper, took me with it.
Made me remember those things that have been so on my mind lately and as easily as inhaling
I thought of watching my skin open just a little, to let some of the poison out.
It's been a long time since I thought of that.
It made me thirsty for something salty and intense and real.
Before I made a conscious decision to drink water instead my imagination went there and took a nice long drink.
The music cut some emotional scab free and it hurt in that sweet hurt kind of a way, as if the cast has come off, leaving weakness and freedom.
It was amazing to find that kind of blood-letting catharsis hiding in my head just waiting for the right call to come in.

I've been carrying around this stuff inside of me wondering how to let it go and go forth and
Be strong.
A little music spoke to my soul.

*I'm not real thrilled with the ending, but I'm not sure how to 'fix' it either. Maybe something will come to me. If it does, I'll revise it later.

Blonde Woman, Two Rows Front

Blonde Woman, Two Rows Front

I keep thinking about how tired I am and that it's mostly my own fault. Instead of going to bed I stay awake
Watching interesting television or
Working number puzzles or
Reading airport paperbacks or
Wandering through the house moving things from one place to another.
Despite the fact that when I close my eyes and take a deep breath my whole body pauses in anticipation of the refreshing quiet of sleep.

In my head I'm blaming everything but myself despite the fact that I know too much.
I stand at some weird emotional point, not stuck but not moving, remembering things that used to mean so much to me.
Every time I miss someone it hurts differently, dependent on how difficult it would be to touch them again, to see them again, to love them still.
And each piece is amazing in it's complexity, and changes each day. Some days the dead seem closer than the living,
Some days living after death is the most difficult obstacle of them all.

I thought I saw you the other day. I've started going to church again, and I wonder if that would please you.
Sitting in front of me was a woman who, for a moment, could have been you, and my heart ached a little bit - a little less and a little more when I realized it was a stranger...
And that you are a stranger too.

So here I am, wondering how you are. Wondering how any of us are, really. How we are managing to get along without each other.
I don't feel stuck, but I'm not moving forward either.
It reminds me of television that I just keep watching because I want to know what happens no matter how bad the players are.

Long lost, or something

I was recently reminded of my first best friend. And in remembering her, I've been caught up in the details of our 'break-up.' We had a naive relationship, her and I, convinced that together we'd take everything life had to throw at us.

But life threw a great shot and broke us apart. My mom got sick, and died, and neither of us could take it. And our perfect friendship failed us both. Now, I kind of want to cry because she's only met my daughter once - in a restaurant we both happened to visit - when she was about a year old. Last year, even a few months ago, I thought 'Oh, well' - in total denial that a part of me still aches for that little piece of friendship heaven we had.

So that's a little bit about "Blonde Woman, Two Rows Front."

Where has all the momentum gone.... Long time passing...

Those of you who might keep up with this randomness will note that I'm not actually great at regular posting efforts. The last week, though, has been a crazy roller coaster that's left me too tired to sleep. No, not a typo - so tired I can't seem to relax and let go and sleep. Stupid conundrums.

But I'm back! Ok, not really. But I thought I'd make an effort. I wish everyone was piled in my computer room so I could give out hugs.

But only so that I could gets hugs in return. :)

Might as well go for broke

Although two grief poems in one night seems somewhat excessive, I wanted to start letting go of this one as soon as possible. Sometimes it really is better to share.

Phases of Grief: A Misnomer

It seems like it's been such a long time since we said a casual hello,
And I miss the sound of your voice.
With each passing day it gets harder to go back to where we were,
Each day takes me farther from where we were.
Without even realizing it, I have boxed you up in my head - or, rather, preserved you perfectly in a glass case I can visit when I get lonely.

Only it's not so perfect, because I keep forgetting the important things.
In all this time we have stagnated and I've been forced to recognize the nature of death is the absence of growth.

Every now and again I think of you and I am filled with white hot rage that threatens to burn me forever.
I want to know why no one told me that death could be so ugly. I had such unrealistic expectations of peaceful goodbyes and dinner plate sized sunglasses hiding all those tears that wouldn't fall.
Nothing prepared me or anyone else to watch you starve to death no matter how many blueberry sno-cones we brought you.
Some things I had right in my head: at some point the news does make your knees buckle,
At some point you're convinced everyone else is wrong and you just have to believe,
At some point you dream of dieing just to escape the pain.

When I am sleeping and the phone rings, my heart races before my brain even wakes up.
My soul remembers what is was like when they called to tell me you were going to die, and then called to tell that you did.
Sometimes I have the intense desire to throw the phone across the room just to watch it break.

I had this weird thought train that led me to your body, confined in a box, a concrete vault, hidden underground, fighting the natural processes with preservatives and progress.
It's too much like the box you live in in my head, and I want to dig you up and set you free.
But I'm too afraid to be left alone with my rage

No one deserves any of this, but it comes anyway - too often without obvious cause or responsibility.
I can live with your death because I have to, but no one told that I would always sometimes get angry.

I found a place to put it...

I wrote this a few months back, right around the 9th anniversary of my mom's death.

Platitudes

I lived in a house with a mother who had lost her mother, who could sometimes be found at 2 am sitting in the dark and crying, brushing us away with "You can't understand."

And then I became a mother who lost her mother and I did.

And when I close my eyes I can still see her vanity; glowing strawberry blond and fixed firmly in place with half a can of aerosol hairspray, curls bouncing with each firm step as if the hairdo said everything.
When it sneaks up on me I remember how she cut it all off before chemo and I'm still not sure if it was fear or defiance.
The big C was a hollowing experience for each of us, taking something that nearly a decade later we can only barely grasp.

Except at 2 am, when I was taught to mourn.

And in defiance...

On the Warning Label
I found myself this past year wandering through life in such a frustrating, disorganized way I was afraid I would get lost altogether.
So I listed my resources, circled the wagons, and went on medication.
After awhile, I could focus better and occasionally clean the bathroom while not feeling too guilty about how dirty it had gotten since the last time.
In the medicated time, a certain new clarity came to me, as if the medicine was a pair of psychological reading glasses.
I experienced breakthroughs, epiphanies, and even the rare moment of acceptance.

But the medicated time has passed, like all eras eventually do.
That clarity so enabled by the medicine has given way to confusion and forgetfulness as I try to leave the era behind.
As I move through this gradual withdrawal I wonder if it would be any worse than stopping abruptly - as my skin itches and my forehead expands with the need for this
Enslavement.
I don't see much point in drawing it out like this, in slowly denying my body this substance it has come to crave
But They all tell me it's for the best, this way.
I loved the clarity of medication and expected it to continue without each pill every day.
I feel cheated by Them, by the medicine, and by my own mind as I struggle to remember to put the clean, wet clothes in the dryer before they start to smell a little musty.
If I had known the horror of the end of the era, I may not have embarked down this path at all.

Honestly, I must admit that without this chemical interruption,
I might have failed in this altogether.

Internet: The way to limitation?

Lately I've been considering offering up my poetry to a few contests. I've got lots of reasons for this, but that's not at all the point. I've been sifting a little each week to find the journals that I like, that I might have a chance in, that just might like me. And the more I read, the more I see certain fine print, which disallows any previously published work - even work published on the internet.

I've been wondering about this. I suppose it's really an attempt to address the e-zine community. Because, really, does my little blog really matter? Am I completely ruining myself by randomly posting what's on my mind, even if it's in poetry form?

After much thought, I've decided not to care. If they don't like my self-published-on the internet-poem, I suppose I don't like them, either.

So there. :)

The Etiquette of Blogging

Maybe some more experienced blogger can let me know - am I creating some kind of terrible blogging faux pas by not creating catchy titles to all my posts? Frankly, sometimes I just don't feel like being catchy.

I actually wonder if there is such a thing as blogging etiquette.

Hmmm. Catchy. Damn the jingle oriented materialistic society.

[Of which, I happily participate in. Anyone out there who doesn't know the Oscar Meyer Bologna tune?]

Fumbling

Fumbling

I was trying to explain something important to me when I realized that I was ruining the whole thing with my words.
I hated the irony of the moment.
For these years I have breathed for the chance to speak, spoke for the chance to be heard, heard for the chance to be understood.
Yet I find I talk so much I lose touch with the thought altogether.

I would like to poll the average housewife and ask her if her mind is ever quiet;
The career woman if her roller coaster ever stops;
The collegiate if she ever finds time to breathe;
The teenager if she understands anything to come,
As if the conglomerate of the answers would somehow show me the way.
Lacking the fortitude to survey anyone, I repeat "Always be joyful. Give thanks whatever happens," while holding tight to whatever may bear the weight.
I pray.

My daughter has caught a cold...

My Apologies

I spent today wanting to hold you, to offer you that comfort you found only in my arms, to quiet that incessant cry, to just love you
But
Also to walk away from all of your need, to lose your cry in my own necessities, to let someone else take your responsibility.
And so I held you; and so I walked away.

I am not sure that I can ever be enough, give enough, love enough for you. On the bad days it feels like rampant failure.
When you gaze at me with such trust there's an echo of my head that lectures me on being better, being more.
I don't deserve that trust you hold so casually.

On the good days I can hold you close and chase away your ills.
And I can almost believe that I have been trustworthy enough -
Or that if I have not, you will forgive me.

Dreaming of a Kansas Sky

Muse-d: Some vague day in 2005 - or maybe early 2006. Most definitely before now.

Dreaming of a Kansas Sky

I was standing in your apartment, watching the rising sun lighten the sky. We were talking, casually, drinking coffee and having a quick bite, and generally doing what people do in these situations. I turned my back to you to fully see the sky when the black line began to descend on us.

I yelled for you to run,
For us to run,
As that black line of clouds filled the sky.
Nothing that dark -
Running that hard -
Menacing that thoroughly -
Could be safe and before I could take a step, one giant funnel cloud spun together and began eating up the earth.

It tore a jagged line, visible from miles away, and I could feel the rending in my bones. I gasped and fell to my knees. When I turned, you were gone. When I blinked, the sky was pale blue and the earth was unharmed.

My coffee had grown cold and my breakfast lay forgotten. Your apartment was empty again. I cleaned up our dishes, gathered my things, and quietly locked the door behind me.

The regularity of these violent storms is frightening to me. When you asked me why I moved away, my explanation was that I was too afraid of Kansas. That answer hurt us both a little less.

Help, help, I'm being... Encouraged

Recently I have found myself being, well, pushed into using this silly little blog that has been rotting away in cyber land. I was surprised that some date related system hadn't purged this business entirely.*

But having discovered that this silly thing still exists, I've made a half hearted goal of randomly doing something with it.

Hey, we all have to have goals.

*We occasionally catch the TV show "Dirty Jobs" on the Discovery Channel. One recent episode featured a recycling plant that processes food through a giant steel drum type device. This device must occasionally be cleaned and that certainly qualifies as a 'dirty job.' I expected this blog to have been thoroughly processed, but instead it seems to have gotten caught and trapped in one way or another. So here I am, scraping it off.

Now you know why my shoes smell.