Interwoven

When I breathe in

I breathe in you

Particles and pieces of

Dust wrapped in energy

Set fire with passion

Untouched

When I breathe out

I breathe out fear

Releasing the rage of rapes

And brain cells gone rogue,

Turning into an internal zombie

Devouring

When I breathe in

I breathe in you

Stardust recalled shadows and

Silent echoes

Of unseen heartbeats

Silenced

When I breathe out

I breathe out hope

Ribbons of heart screams

Woven tightly

Into decorative ropes

Binding

Me to you 

Us to 

Every other

Us

That ever was

Breathe in

Breathe out

Breathe in

Breathe out

We not only belong to each other

We ARE each other

At least that

We are gathering
    for no solutions
beyond the hearing,
sparkling beauty between each shared
story.

The slightly louder
exhalation
that signals
speech crawling slowly
up the larynx

We gather
At least that

I have invisible
detailed white wings
and I wrap them
around the circle
of us

Without solutions...
At least that.

Words whispered
or clearly articulated
eyes down cast
Stories that hid, crumpled in
chests brought forth
and flattened out
with trembling fingers

We hear you
At least that

I open my heart
and pull the blackness
out of you,
pull as hard as I can
and center it into
my wide open
Till the tears grow heavy
and finally dance for you

In shared unsure motion toward each other

At least that.

I AM

At night
She whispers
Fiercely in my ear
"Remember you are beautiful
Beyond compare. You are strong
And brave and everything you need to be..."

The words are arrow bound and aimed
To fill the wounds
Left gaping
Dripping...no,
Weeping

Weeping unlike willows
Swaying softly, a hundred
Floating dancers spinning
And entwining
Always together
The branches in bunches

My tears are dry
Solitary
Swallowed
Swelling to bursting
Pushing muscles and words
To say things
Do things

Wrong things
Things I watch myself doing
Saying
A fly perched on the wall beside myself
Never loud enough to be heard
Unable to stop the things
I shouldn't be
Completing

And so they happen
And the whisper words I send my way
Are the poison swords
Stabbing
No need to repeat them
Fill in the blanks as you see fit

Which is why I need her
This her that is finally me
This Her who is finally more
On my own side
And the darkness calms things
So that

At night
She/me/I can whisper
Fiercely in my (own) ear
"Remember you are (I am) beautiful
Beyond compare. You are (I am)strong
And brave and everything you (I) need (me) to be..."

I Am.

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

My story was told wrong

"You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert,

repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your 

body

love what it loves.

~ Mary Oliver

I read almost every night now,
again,
to my kids

I feel like Ursula
rising huge in purple painted laughter
confident
triumphant

Redrawn the way we redid Maleficent

Because I would never take the
fins
or wings
or voice
from anyone

My story was told wrong

Death and grief restructure you
and still, I never would have done that

Your armor, if you embrace it right
moves with you
flexible as pine branches
twirling and whipping in hurricanical winds
bending, unlikely to break
Growing as you grow
bending with the healing of your heart at each stage

We tango with holding what we love, cheek to cheek
passionate, quick, deliberate
doing a deep dip slowly, looking longingly into each other's eyes
and see the beauty of letting go
at last
when the boundary has been slashed

and the gray storm of a Pixar spell
envelops you
swirls around you in a cloud-like stole
and the vapors
cloud your eyes
choke you

My story was told wrong

Life is not a series of struggles
leading to exalted, exaggerations of joy
after perfectly structured
tales of adventure, issues, and ends...

the stages are real
they exist
they swirl and sneak around your spine
and structure everything

but they do not end
not until you do

and if you slow down
like when you were little
laying in the golden majesty of that evergreen grove
sacred in its mist of nothing special
and everything that ever mattered

perhaps your vision might clear so that you can see
that the imperfection of every moment
is where the beauty lives
the dimpled brown dents in pure white striated daisy petals

The evil queen
the bedeviled bitch
the nasty women
the feminazis

Those
    who know what they want
and ask for it
    who know when they feel insulted
and say so
    who refuse to be belittled
and push back
    who live deeply in a way that SINGS that they are loveable
and will never.  Ever. Listen when you say they are not

Maybe we aren't what you painted us to be

And maybe the good men aren't gone.
Maybe we need to stop scaring them away
from holding tight
to their emotions and the pine trees
and clarity and honesty and tears.

Let them have their tears back.

Perhaps the tears will wash clean all our hearts
so the goodness can find a way back.

My story was told wrong.

I always thought I would read to my kids every night
No matter what

At least I'm back at it
again.

Paint over it, around it, and make it your own.
I'm not done living yet.
And I am still saying "yes" to the things
upon my path

"You never know ahead of time what something's really going to be like."

~Katherine Patterson 

Hope, having found him

If nothing else, I’m learning there is hope…still.  I’m learning TO hope.  Again.  There is a man.  He makes me laugh.  Kind of a lot. 

We went too fast, er, are going too fast?  Except, it is right where we are meant to be, and the farther it goes, the more comfortable it gets.  He’s done so many different things in his life, been through so much.  His level of adventurism matches mine quite well. 

Sometimes, I’m a little jealous of his oldest daughter and how much he loves spending time with her…until I realize that that is silly because I pause and apply it to an understanding of John loving Cecilia.  He is a fabulous father.

He is ridiculously sarcastic in a dorky way that I love. 

The way he touches me makes my body burn like coal.  At first when we kissed there was a hardness, nibbling at each other, and it was good. On Valentine’s Day, his lips softened, and now when we kiss, it’s like our mouths briefly melt into each other’s, and it is so much better.

In two short months, we have navigated two issues of mine and one of his.  His issue played out in not answering the phone or responding to my text messages.  I tried to channel John, because running is what I used to do, what I pull to even now to some degree.  And he would not let me run.  So I talked with friends to figure out how to manage my issues and not let go.  And he finally answered the phone.  So we talked, and I learned things about him…about his fear and his processes…and I hope he learned about me. 

Even just typing this, my body lights up with the memory of his touch.  He holds my hand and doesn’t let it go.  Even when it’s awkward to keep holding it.  I like it even though it’s weird.  Maybe because it’s weird. 

He tells me I’m beautiful all the time, and when he holds me, touches me, kisses me…I feel more beautiful than I have in years.  I don’t think about my belly.  I don’t think about being a widow.  I think about laughing and touching and loving.  I think about being loved.

I do not need a man to be happy.  I do not need this man.  But connection is a massive comfort to me.  And I cannot fake connections.  He touches the smallest fibers inside me somehow.  It’s like from the moment we met in person, our souls started to weave themselves together.  With each meal we share, each time we make each other laugh, each kiss planted and pair of entwined fingers, each time we misunderstand each other and face the fear and hurt to talk about it and choose to touch each other again, the weave thickens, becomes more intricate.  I am learning to hope again.  I’m learning to trust in love. 

I know that all of this is just a beginning.  But it is a strong one, full of beauty.  And I’m so happy to have found it.