what do we have?

I am close
so close
to the Buttercup finish line
of what the grieving time
might
be

and yesterday
I saw them, those two children
that live inside me

I had help learning to look inside myself
and I heard the echoes
of the zygote of a song
a game of
Hide and Seek
I knew it was Ani
and the words I heard
singing and swaying
in my mind
were telling me
the anger
lives
regardless
of who the owner is

I heard that I should
stop apologizing

I see two children

One is about 11.
Her hair is blonde and she does not know
how
to make eye contact
she looks down
her shoulders curve inward
her hair is barley
washed
and Oh!
how she dreams

like Cosette's floating castles
she imagines worlds
so much more gentle
than where she walks,
cuddle parties with lovers who hear you
and share so loudly
it is clear you are not
the only one talking

yet
she lives without dreams
widely awake
aware
and scared

her adaptation is her rigid frozen fear
doing what has been
barely
asked of her
imagining the layers of pain
that exist below
each unspoken
no
The shame of the fact that they were ever
unspoken
at all

and

then

the other child
is older

Her hair is jet black
dyed

and she,
with her tattoos and piercings, and fiery straight ahead eyes
she carries every Angry

she cuts them off
their words
their attempts at suggested connection
she'd cut off
parts of them
if she could

this time
the problem is his
and the anger
it comes
and comes and
comes
and

there was a protective parapet
and the crumbling of it
was candy magic
for her drooling decadent needs
needs that were so loud
so real.
so loud and real they were all there ever was

and even there, the anger came:
her fists and car hoods
her head and metal doors
broken fingers from thick desk tops
and the bottom of so many
bottles of wine
even the dream of the twitch
of the steering wheel
at just
the right
moment toward the arching stone bridge
and there were night drives
with the lights off
and doors opened
legs
opened

wounds

opened

and she
did not consent to ANY
of the pain
 and she will
cut you
although not deep enough to draw blood

she WILL leave you
block you
bar you

she is so young
so tough
so scared
so very
very
scared

anger is not
a primary emotion.
It comes from fear and hurt.

I come from fear and hurt.
And I, I am old.
I have seen each of those. Worn the faces
lived the lives and had the same name
I hold them still, and more
inside my chalice cup

there are so many cracks in it
so many myriad meandering fissures
some are filled with gold
some with mud
some with silent screams that have no body
some with a body
that has no voice

I hold
them all

I can hold
them all
I know I can

It just
takes...time...
time and space, but I can do it

Trying to let myself be me
 so strong
to let myself have time to SIT
long enough to hold them all

to heal them all

to listen and comfort and calm
them all

for they are all

just me

And so,

I
breathe.

for ultimately....that is all we actually have.
This moment, right here, right now.
To breathe.

learning my way- mindfully stumbling

unlikely lessons
sucker punch you the hardest
when fear and hope sway

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

eyes like mirror memory kisses
silent lips, finger tips
and fights

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I know that moving forward, not past, is the idea
In moving I bend, stumble, fall and scrape my knees and palms and chin
for a long while
I cannot stand
I can barely breathe
Until I realize I AM standing
shuffling somehow somewhere
anywhere but where the blood marks lay
and there is fog like a blanket
fog like surround sound
fog like goggles and gloves and heavy, wet galoshes
but
I. Am. moving

1,461
The number of days that make up four years
Since we breathe
about 23,040 times a day,
that means I've survived
over 33 million inhalations
ingesting the energy he left behind

when I close my eyes
when I slow my breathing
when I repeat my mantras:       may I be brave
may I be kind, may I be well, may I be happy:
I notice my limbs
languid
lacking a body to embrace
and so
I breathe again
and once more

building, failing, learning, growing
attempting so many -ings

sometimes, though the story
my fingers tell me about
how much they miss touching
is more subtle
than the other sound my heart can hear:
the harrowing screams
echo-clanging between my ribs
sealing hope into a vibration chamber
because I
am far more afraid
than I let myself admit.

They are abandonment screams...
screams that scratch out each story
of the lies, manipulation, misplaced trust, and pain
that came before him.

They are the abandonment screams...
screams that, creaking, etch the bleeding story
of how the One that Would Never Leave
was dragged from this world
to melt into
the hospice bed
leaving beside me a cool, heavy husk
leaving beneath me scorched grounds
leaving inside me a viscous hallowed essence
leaving around me only echo sounds

I want to be ready for the growing time:
gently, with awe and reverence, I will remove the husk
to find the seeds.
Barefoot, I will bend to the earth and dig
with roughened hands and ripped, jagged fingernails: for as a forest fire licks layers of life
into its grounds, perpetuating the nitrogen cycle,
the phoenix fire that I've been blistering in
has, perhaps, laid a new foundation

I will hold his energy inside me
the bits I breathed in since he left
and the bits he gave me while he was alive
And with them as my arc reactor
I will attempt
to allow the hallowed essence to fold and whisper the viscous bits
into something softer
I will breathe deep into my diaphragm
so that, instead of only echo sounds
I can open my mouth

to
sing.