To Not Give Up (poem)

Hide me
without letting me slip away
don't break me
for I am broken
beyond repair
beyond the need for repair

see me for I am worth
looking
at

I have hands that connect us
and eyes that see
more than your words can tell me
I read your moves
like a poem on the waves
of time and musical notes in the song
of your personal pain

shadows
define light as much as light
brings the shadow
find it...find the sharp lines
that make
you
curve

into yourself
curl
around
what you need

there is courage here
powerful soft swaying motion
that forces you to find
connection

no strength is worth
the loss of anything
worthy

so work into your bones
the strength of time
bend at the knees
tip your neck to the sky

step
and again

the slowest dance of all

to live.

I write poetry for a UU class now.  And when I write it I find that it annoys me...my tenacity, that is... I don't feel courageous right now.  I don't feel strong.  And my poems don't feel right until I hit that chord.  I feel angry.  I feel lost and scared and as close to hopeless as I have ever felt.  I know that I have over come and amazing amount of things.  I KNOW this.  I have been blessed to have found a therapist who has guided me to places where I can even comfortably banish some of the old bad thoughts that never let me believe before

Regardless.  I'm here.  I am sincerely broken.  John's illness and his death did end up robbing me of my teaching career.  I am not allowed to speak of it...I signed a paper.  Suffice it to say, I accepted the deal and  I don't like it.  I took it because it was the only one I didn't see leading to the hospital.

Why do I let myself feel stupid for reaching for love and for hoping?  I don't really think that is a dumb thing to do.  Not in the big picture, not in the real world...just for me.  Just me.  I'm not made for being loved and being allowed to love...not a man.  I feel like I snuck one past Fate and scored John by accident for a few years.  Now, like my mother and grandmother, I'm meant to be alone and relatively miserable about that.  This makes me think of Holes and Stanley Yelnats.  I family cursed.  I'd carry the pig up the mountain every day for a year.  I would.  And it doesn't matter.  The pigs keep running away or confusing me before I can even get passed a week or two.

Owls and bears and mythical momentary ideals of battles and friendship and things that go bump in the night.

I don't know what I'm doing.  The difference is, I am too old for this shit.  And it makes no difference that I believe in love.  That I will continue to do so.  Because my life does not allow me to connect with others that believe the same, in similar situations, who are happy to connect.  I had an asshole ask me once not to long ago if I had support.  I referred to the amazingly loving online friends who send me digital love.  He said no.  He meant people to come over, have wine, hang out, give me hugs.  Nope.  I don't have that very often at all.  I figure it must be my own fault.  Because if it isn't, I can't d anything to change that.  I'd prefer to have the power.  Even when I have no clue what I am doing right, wrong, or awkward.

That might count as courage, right?

words on silent wings I wish I turly believed (poem)

courage
closing around soft caresses
whispers of wind
and hope and healing
leading down paths
with no exit

just more entrances

owl wings
silent deadly
feathers silken shadows

it is as if I hear voices
that are not
human
and at the same time
are mine

I do not understand
yet should know
I should
in fact
be the creator

I am, however, the mouse

owls and bears and
honestly
there is not one watching

instead I'm perched
atop a losing
jenga game

and I think
of courage

I think of his anger
wondering if illness undeserved
triggered my kill switch

it did more

it installed the kill switch

how do you find hope
inside a trap?

How can you embrace a freedom
from a trap that never was
unwanted

and now I am

released

into the world
broken, able, angry, scared

and moment inside a secret garden
are just that

moments.

Peace
courage
love
loss
fear
grief

these are only words

and words wear only
the armor we link for them

what armor wears these words

and comes out strong?

I don't know
but it will
be
mine.

encircled (poem)

It's a blessing
to lay my head
in the circle of your love

but the circle
of serenity
lies broken
like a the thin sheath
protecting the brain
after the razor slips

I find myself rewandering
paths
I thought I'd passed

I can see, from here,
how we are all wandering
broken, in fire engulfed houses
while the only way out
is to see
that we
are all on fire

I see the flames

I am more alone
than any of those
that I see

and I have questions

is it because
I know that circle of love
where my head could lay
soft
or because
when the doors close
it's dark

and all I want
is to curl up
in that long
gone
lap.

jumbled mumblings (poem)

dry finger on dry lips
slowly back and forth
with eyes that stare
and skin
speckled gray

conversations
causes
blame
and metaphorical butcher's knives

reading
doing
teaching
losing
lusting
missing

small stones
the size of forever
and rivers
flooding mountain tops

close your eyes
to aim

it is as if
I see things, through grief
and all the mazes I've made
and been thrust into
differently

the nights are longer than
swirls through seashells
the pain is softer
finding a path to fuzz
into slipper spaces
and a varied version of
comfort
clouds that attempt
protection
while covering nothing

because all the while
the wolves surround
the bits that bite and slick wet claws
pull parts of flesh
of dreams
of night owls
poke holes in the eyelts
of night sky that used to
hide passion pressure tenderizers

till bones
crack holes into back bones
and stretchy things
begin to stiffen

my body
is not forfeit
nor my mind invaded

but my life
my hopes
the pin prick star songs
of some sort of future fog
has disappated

leaving a clear clean path
sparkling off to the horizon
with
nothing
much

in sight.

If only I dreamed (poem)

I had a life once
a different life
self contained, assuming every

bar I walked into I'd find
Him

and instead, He came to my school.
I had camping days with peacocks screams
replacing the cock call
ice water bikini dips in foreign shelf lakes

I had coral reef colors
swarming and filtering through
the complete mask and regulator
and an angry red octopus slammed, mouth down
on my upturned palm.
I had skydives and surf lessons,
midnight drives to a lover's house

I had a wedding dress
a golden dog
dry hands to hold
a ring side seat to fire dives
and street luge races

I had a life once
so different than I'd ever dreamed
far more
than I ever hoped

I got to watch
as it withered
hold hands with it
while the balance wandered off
the left arm began to hang
the liquid dried up from inside
and the lips began to stick together

Lifetimes and moments
flash inside seconds
while dancing with eternities
that spin you
much
too fast

I had a different life once
reaching
with my heart
into the future
holding hands and touching souls
lighting fires
connecting minds

I got to watch
as the microscopes
were pulled out, I winced as they were attached
I lay there
as they purveyors of pretend perspicuity
pulled back my skin
cracked my skull
unfurled the curls of brain
that held me all together

and then, with pieces of me pinned to the table
exposing my inside bits
corpse like
they deemed me unworthy
showing generosity
as they allowed me to attempt
to continue to try
from my supine state
sipping coffee, judging from the sidelines
as I failed
reminding me that others have had it hard
and this,
this was all
on
me

So now
I am a ghost
infiltrating a life that isn't yet
mine
I had a life once
a different life
a few different lives
and now
now I have serendipitous tendrils
spun from dying crying phalanxes of phantom moments of hope
spinning slowly, lacking thrusters
freezing and choking
in the massive, encompassing vastness of space
so quiet
so lonely
so far beyond anything
I feared possible

I have a life to build,
mouths to feed
and memories to live up to
an empty core
that breaks and spreads the hollow deeper,
it cracks and curls inward
waiting to be filled with gold
a new creation
far more broken
imperfect
and
if I'm lucky
more beautiful
than anything
I ever
dreamed
possible.