fluttering fire

the day began
to wind down
and something spiraled in
my insides

I could see just fine
yet my vision was blurred
there were no tears
no connecting moments
yet

there was a fullness in my chest
burning, burrowing
there was a fluttering fire
like dying wings
drifting down each finger tip

some sort of lead
pooled through my veins

and it hurt

like your soul was reaching for me
from somewhere so far away
trying to find a way
to hide in me
pulling and tugging at my
everything

my heart tightened
my eyes began to burn
a fluttering fire filled my fingers
singed my soul and
burned at the peripherals
of my brain
making function a fool's dream

without you
I know it isn't true
but I feel as if I am nothing
I am no one
I am night buried in desert
crumpled and burning and broken
and lost

grief grew solid inside me
for a bit
and all I could do
was wait while the fire fluttered out
and the ashes
became the ballast.

with my eyes closed

When I close my eyes
I see
the life that was torn
from me
I wish there was a way
to truly ask for help
But how can that be
when no one knows my path

There are so many things
that I see I do well
there are so many things
that fall into the cracks

so many kind souls
reach out to offer me
some sort of sweet
comfort
but nothing touches me
like he
did

it is touch that offers peace
and no one touches me
the way the he knew how...
so
I close
my eyes.

Not to feel the loss.
But because
he is there.

breaking the broken

sometimes, I step up very close to photos of him that hang on the wall, frozen smiles, magical moments long gone and empty now...and I whisper that I miss him.  I stare deep into his eyes.

what I want is to feel something like stable.
to believe I know who I am and where I am going
to trust that this lonely journey is not meant for me alone

we all have a path to walk.  I am so damn grateful to have had the chance to have him by my side for the last part of his life.  I so desperately and sincerely HATE that "the last part of his life" came so fucking fast.  Too fast.  Not fair.  Nothing is fair.  Who can truly stand in judgement, telling me that things happen for a reason?  My kids will grow up without their dad.  The reason is that we haven't cured cancer yet.  That's the reason.  Nothing else.

I sometimes feel so strong- moving forward, laughing, working, trying, doing...but that feeling doesn't last.  There is too much to keep up with, too many moments filled with decisions I would have turned to him for bouncing ideas off...there is a certain autonomy in making the decisions myself.  But there was such a comfort knowing I had him to help with the processing...

none of this is doing my thoughts justice right now.

There is an automated rake that claws its way across my heart
randomly
there are earthquakes in here
cracking, tilting, bending things that shouldn't bend
there are ghosts, whispers, demons
ashes with bits of bone

Your one and only- I'm worthy to be that...
and it does not matter
because there are no miles to walk
I can't pretend I might
be able
to belong to someone else.

that rake that stabs and wrenches, bearing bone and blood
bringing to the surface
every insecurity
makes every judgement call
bizarrely unreliable

I am solitary, soulless
wandering the desert sea
blinded by the light
delirious, bewildered, unwilling to lay down
unaware of the distance to
anywhere
burned and broken and lost
beyond all belief...

I am learning to pray.  Not to any sort of god
but there is energy
all around us, in the sea, the desert, lost in the woods
in an empty high school math class
standing  on stage, trembling before an audience with no words prepared
deep in the depths of even everything broken
there is energy.  why not reach out for it?
why not beg and ask for help? Open the doors
to your dry and dying heart...
Either energy
will fill you, or not.
The asking breaks nothing

anger veins

Wow, that was an EPIC parenting fail.  First, let me tell you that I am so incredibly fused with anger right now it is making my legs tremble a tiny little bit.  Then, I found out that my first week's efforts at focusing on calorie counting (using an app, which makes it very easy and accurate) and on increasing the walks I already have to do with my dogs in an honest and fervent desire to lose some of this weight, was a total loss.  I didn't find it particularly hard most days to eat the 1435 calories.  One day, I even had to down some peanuts in order to make sure I wasn't down below 1200, which a friend said would "turn down the furnace".  The walks hurt though.  My shin splints are acting up on both legs, my knees aren't as bad as I thought they would be but they do hurt, and I have had two splits in the skin on my feet from my psoriasis, as in, they tore open to blood.  I have been doing planks every few nights for as long as I can hold them, kicks and squats while I wait for the dogs to do their business, and even did some push ups last night.  Got on the scale today and haven't lost a single pound.  Which is all I was really hoping for- a pound.  I honestly would have been happy just to see that tiny little progress.  But nope. 

So then I am trying to get ready to walk the dogs, and Neil won't stop crying.  He doesn't want a hug, he wants "buppy" (me to pick him up).  So he is doing his tantrum thing, which I just <<love so much.>>  (I already had to diffuse Cilly's tears because she wants to come with me...I told her I would rather have her come with me, but I am really trying to get some exercise and she wouldn't be able to keep up with me)  Now he is on the floor crying and I am trying to ignore him and my foot cuts hurt and I'm just so MAD that John isn't here to help with any of this that I just need to do SOMETHING.  I have this big plastic cube that has rounded edges and is a dog toy of sorts.  I figure that it is sturdy enough I can throw it pretty hard and have no problems, right?  Not so much.  The f*cker bounces. 

I watch in pseudo slow motion as it rebounds up towards the table with all sorts of special framed photos and secretly beg it to not hit them.  Which it doesn't.  Instead, it collides with the glass globe on the gumball machine we have had forever.  And shatters the glass, spraying shards everywhere.  After which, time speeds up again, along with my mouth, whose controls connecting it to my brain seem to have been severed,  because I start spouting anger at Neil for crying, then at me for being a bad mom and an awful person. 

I pick up the shards, hoping to cut myself in the process and failing to do so, then vacuum the rest.  Then, Neil finally consents to the hug I offered in place of "buppy" before.  So I call him to me, and Cilly comes too, and I at least have the wherewith all to apologize for being crazy, to tell them I do NOT think I am a bad person and a bad mother, I'm just angry that daddy isn't here to help and I am overwhelmed and that really, NONE of this is their fault.  I told them I am NOT really actually angry at them right now, but at life.  Then I walk the dogs.

Who had already pooped in the house before I got downstairs.  At 7:30 on a Saturday morning, because the kids woke me up, screaming and crying and fighting over glow sticks in the bathroom at 6:40.  Which could, quite possibly, have helped contribute to the anger stew that has been running in my veins.  I don't think you should have to get up before 8 on a weekend unless it is for something fun and exciting.  My kids disagree.  Just wait till you are teenagers, guys.  Payback is gonna be a bitch.

It's been a while

moments go so damn fast.  days are longer than years used to feel.  and everything is just harder and more confusing.  But still, there are good days, where I mostly smile and I actually laugh often.  I went back and read the very first entry I made here.  I'm not sure where it put me, where it brought me.

I want to be someone's favorite.  More than anything.  and I have no idea how to find that.  I'm listening to Sweet Jane...I remember all the lives I have lived.  I feel them all inside me...I just wonder where they have gone, those different times....I am almost 40, and I don't want to be in a place so lost and broken.  I may have already shared this, but some friends tell me I am not broken.  That is very sweet and kind.  It is also untrue.  I am not a shadow of what I was, I am shattered pieces. I try to think about what I believe, and the person I want to be, the person I am.  I feel this incredible gratitude toward so many parts of the universe.  I think about how, in comparison to the world full of people loving and suffering, to the multiverse full of, what, maybe billions of Goldilocks planets, I am so much less than nothing.  But no matter how many Just Right planets there are, no matter how many people who love more, lost more, hurt more, I am still here, and I have my own heart to deal with.  I try to look beyond me.  I want to help people.  But if I hadn't donated to the Malaria site, I wouldn't have been in the negative this month.  I'm not sure that would have changed my mind, because dying of malaria is a greater need than having your bank account in the black.  But still...I need to refocus on my life and my kids.  People in my theology class say that being a teacher, and I extrapolate to being a teacher who loves what they do, is enough...I don't have to spend so much energy on wishing I was giving more, because I already give every day.  But I need to see my pain as small in the cosmic picture.  Because it is...

I know that there are some people that see me as beautiful, stunning...and that fills me.  I think John saw me that way.  And that gives me hope that someday, someone will love me again, if I can find a way to see that in me.  When I met him, I was so happy....I was struggling to deal with old shit, yes, but I was also filled with the joy that comes with finding your calling and getting a job that pays you to do it.  That is a wonderful gift that not everyone realizes.  I know that.  But I have always felt that the goals you meet inside the home and heart, with family, are far more important.  And now, I don't have a damn clue what to do with that part of me.  I get on dating sites, and the men are showing pics of their guitars and their junk in red underwear, or they tell my I should have the profile name "sexyfrederick", and don't say much more...and the ones that have interesting things on their profile, say nothing to my messages...I assume because I carry my baby and stress weight like a badge of horror....but even with the weight, I think I am lovely. And so I feel confused and lost and annoyed that I have to even think about this kind of thing.  Which I don't.  But it is going to take me a while to truly be ready to jump into the idea of dating again, and it seems like a good idea to daydream while testing the waters and all...so...confusing.  All over the place.

I don't know how to believe.  I don't know how to love, or to love again.  I have NO clue how to trust.  I feel like John was a magical gift and I know there are other gifts out there, but finding them is like going on a scavenger hunt across the WORLD with only three clues:  I am smart, I am broken, I want to love honestly...try finding something in a haystack THAT big with those clues. I dare you.  Yeah, giving up looks mighty good, right?  If only it weren't for that Divine Connection thing, where all I want is to feel the soul of another touching my own soul and needing me...because that is the only thing that matters at the deepest level of being.  And as grateful as I am for the friends filtering in and out of my life, babysitting, helping me clean, laughing and crying with me, because I am MASSIVELY grateful for you, my connections are only brief touches right now.  And what I want is to be touched completely, to be tangled up in and with someone again.  Intertwined.

Intertwined trees painted

by Spitenmalice

Aims, ambitions, and goals in life...?

The assignment is to write a paragraph detailing your aims, ambitions, and goals in life.  Then, figure out how much progress you are making towards them.

I have never been particularly goal oriented.  I am much more free spirited.  If I had a goal or goals, I guess they would be to help others, children in particular, to travel, and to find ways to not carry the wounds of my family's past into my future.  When I was in college, getting ready to graduate, I wanted to go into the Peace Corps.  I thought, if I don't get in, I would move somewhere warmer than Maine and do something with kids.  I was rejected and so I moved to Virginia and ended up working for St. Joseph's Villa- the longest continuously operating children’s nonprofit organization in the country.  I worked for the Dooley School, aiding for elementary aged students who had been kicked out of public schools.  I also worked a little at the homeless shelter.  During my schooling in Maine, I worked in a Nursery School as an aide for kids with special needs, I volunteered at a domestic violence shelter as a kid worker.  Additionally, I have had a chance to travel throughout Europe and Australia, as well as a little bit through South America.  As for healing the wounds of my family's past, I have learned to understand that the verbal abuse that rained down on me during my teenage years was born of a twisted desire to keep me from harm.  It came from the fear my grandmother carried in her heart that I would fall victim to some of the same awful things that she did.  I have forgiven both her and my mother.  I still strive to find ways to let go of the confusing mental tapes they implanted as a grew to adulthood.  So I suppose, when things are totaled, I have done a pretty good job of reaching my goals.  For now, I want to find a way to get through the grief of losing my husband to cancer in the healthiest way possible.  I want to be a strong, loving, positive role model for my children.  I desperately want to get to a place where I am open to love again.  Right now, my goals have to do with surviving, healing, facing pain so that I don't hide from it but heal within it, like a piece of iron in a forge.

That might be more than a paragraph. 

when Volcanic tears surprise me

He was my
everyday
now my every day
is empty
Not completely
just harshly devoid
of sweet caring
gentle support
loving caresses
insider jokes
and insider fights

now, inside
just hurts
so I try
lighting candles
to visualize
my insides
burning down
to compost dust
our love a kind of loam
building a base
to be nutrient rich
where something
new someday
something special
something small and real
a tender tendril
a quiet green growth
might poke through
something to clear the air
offer beauty
carry comfort
engender empathy
into the empty
inside
me.