Not actually alone

What is today,

Is yesterday,

And all the movements we make

Are melted into ones that swayed before

5 years

5 months

5 minutes

Time torn away from what he accidentally

Thought

Might be

Trips directly into

The tardis

And there is no forward or back

Here or there

The girl who waits

Waits forever and never began

The heart that love rent

Is reformed

Remolded

And ripped apart to bleed

Again

And so he breathes

Again

On swollen broken feet

He takes a baby step

And chooses to challenge the idea

That baby steps

Mean moving forward

I can climb a stool to sit upon

Taking baby steps

Upon each rung.

Rest.  Resting is good

Resetting

There is a black and blurry moment

Every now and then

Full of chocolate

Wine

Tears

Too much sleep

Not enough sleep

Snapping and snarling

Hair pulling and refusing to make anything

For dinner

Reset

Until the cord no longer plugs in

Till the metal is bent

A spur upon the bones of your spine

Causing scoliosis

Curving the part of you

Meant to structure you

Strong and straight and tall

There are still baby steps

Through the mud

While winds whistle the rustling rub

Of bending bark

On aging window panes

Not quite

Like fingernails upon the length

Of old blackboards

But close

5 years

5 months

5 minutes

Time torn away from what he accidentally

Thought

Might be

Trips directly into

The time machine

And all that ever was

And all that ever will be

Billows through the blender

Of the soul

Spinning and whirring

Till one thing

Is firmly fused

Into

Every

Other

Thing

That ever was or will be

Our stories

No matter how heavy

Are never

Entirely

new

Our stories spin together

A child died
I'd never met him

A woman far too young
faces a demon called cancer
squirming its bastard way
into her brain

Brave
Strong

I think about these concepts often

When I was 23
my Women's Study/History professor
held a Santaria celebration
to usher in the new year.
I had my first tarot card reading there
as everyone left

a woman older than me sat beside me
we had one card pulled
and two polar opposite reactions
to the image of a solitary woman
in a plowed field
barefoot,
arms down and palms forward
she faced away into the distance.

She saw sorrow
I saw courage, strength

I think, now, I see both

My nails are trimmed short
and still I wake up
with random scratches on my hands

I've been a widow for almost 5 years
I wonder if it's silly to search
for a mostly safe place

I notice how odd it is
that the feelings I feel are simultaneously
tiny
and all of the universe
folded into my melting, mourning mind

For 44 years I have been practicing breathing
I am finally mastering the skill
in fits and starts

Enough so that I am strong enough to choose
curiosity
even when my breath hitches in sobs and stuttering tears

While foundations rumble.

My biggest secret and my deepest fear?

I am
exhausted.

So exhausted

And still
when I close my eyes
remember to breathe
I feel them

The child who died
The woman attacked by cancer
My husband dead five years

there are waves, and birds, breezes and songs
dreams and
things I can't explain

We are connected
we are woven

So I silently sing a secret whisper
and ask the nothing
the vibrates with it all

to hold me up
a little while longer