I'm afraid. But I have choices

I’ll sit on my deck

I bet the warm winter air

Will blow my hair

In a way some might say

Is beautiful

I’ll eat a cookie

Meant for Santa

That I could not finish

On Christmas night

And maybe

There will be a star

To wish on

If I believed

In wishes

But I don’t

I believe in loss

Love

Mistakes

Pain

Wine

Chocolate

Hugs.  Oh!  I believe in hugs so much

Music is an amazing thing to add to the list

When I was young

I fell in “love” with boys who barely knew my name

I sang them songs

Plunked out on simple piano notes

No chords

Just words

And tears

I wrote tear stained poetry

And lamented

Tender hearts

Left broken

On sandy shores

I’ll sit on my deck

Now

Eating Santa’s cookie

Looking at stars 

And knowing

What it is to be alone

It’s so odd

What humans can do…

I hurt then:  I remember a babysitter’s bed

In Martha’s Vineyard

Where I learned that the “he” I thought would “be”

Had lied and “loved”

TWO others.

I thought my heart died that day

And I thrashed at the sheets and tore my hair

Till my everything was spent.

And off I went, to babysit

We live…when we choose to not end it

And when cancer and luck and heart disease

Don’t jump in our bath with a toaster

We live

And we remember the pains that painted everything

Onto our bodies

The backside of our eyelids

That changed the tempo of our hearts.

But left them

Beating

I’ll sit on my deck

My hair might blow in the breeze in a way

Someone might say

Makes me look beautiful.

I won’t feel beautiful.

I barely feel alive

But that

Is what

I am

So I promise

Thought I’m terrified to tears

I promise I’ll try

To honor that life.

I’ve known too many

Who’ve died.