“There is no activism without despair, no despair without hope. Despair can be as powerful an engine for change as hope.”
Finding Hope in Despair — Borderless
Finding Hope in Despair — my article in Borderless
Tag: #hope
How’s it taste?
In the olden days
they mined towns for their ore
like men drank youth from the
neck of local girls
until everything became brittle
time fled ahead
to something unrecognizable and sour
then we looked up from our tasks
seeing a familiar chink of light in day
years falling away, yellowed pages
surprising us with how many
collected at our feet
how could, all this time have gathered, and
dust in our hair, as we sat, hunched over
our endeavors like hungering cats
without respite?
Without children, our marking
of the passages of life, mislaid somewhere
a half mended cardigan
no longer fitting right
we skipped from pursuit to distraction
thinking it possible to always return
to that hour we woke
our heads wet with the burnished zeal
of awareness
now, now we have slept
without knowing our slumbering
the turn of years into decades
our prodigious output, a heavy weight
on the bare necked sap of youth
staring into the mirror seeing lines
that have crept unbidden in afterglow
like thieves, we still believe ourselves
that youth
with shiny hair and bright intentions
where have they found themselves? Lost
among conifer trees, flitting in and out
like an optical illusion, solitary birch
burying fears of
going blind and birthing cancers
instead of placentas beneath the mother tree
stifling truth
for one of ‘maturity’ and ‘reliability’
ironed sleek on fists of thawed rebuke
though every night as indigo infuses sky
there remains a longing with the starlings to scream
fermenting anguish out into the humus
where nobody, save the desolate lost
might respond to entreaty
and return, by pull of thread
tug of color through dark
that vital spirit cherished
when all else went to rot
amidst the berserker of youth
thirsting on its short straw
determined to drink it all
before we, parched and fragile
in garnishment, got to share
a little of life, just a glance
backward to the days spent dancing
lost in sound, the writhe of
bodies about, surging in a sea
of shared rebuke
of this cold world
where water in the morning on your face
scolds
your vast, lovely, unspoken
dreams
The refugee heart
Before hard faced words and tightened bouquets of spite,
came silence
The child swirled in embryo, unscathed by adult cast of hate
Yet unknowing we inhabit cruelty, like a brand in darkness will
light no way but vengeance, reflecting shadows of lost conscience
against petroglyph walls
stories dissipated in forgetting what is true.
This child who once had temerity and self-worth clad about her, the vestige
of some right to exist, perhaps.
An instinct, as weeds will thrive in exhaust and skinny cats climb insurmountable
to glut on that thrashing impulse, called survival
words now scarred, like badly bandaged souls do not forget the echo
of a tender heart turned wicked, nor that merciless piercing
through skin thought impenetrable, to embrace hot metal
as if it did not catch our very soul on fire.
Once, we all wished for, love, pure and unfettered, blooming as night rose
carrying her scent against warm air, inhaling vetiver magic, aware then, of all things
our cache of hope, restless in the waves, we yield, undulate and count
moon peal across black water, spinning youth into gossamer
too fine to hold us securely.
Those burnt coals raked certain, beneath the old impulse to run
mindful of how we grow, the thirst for something real remains
tantalizingly distant
against the roar of white waves, crashing tirelessly to shore
reducing our ankles frigid with the climb, a vaunted capture
of sea — receding against open hands to places beyond
our feeble reach.
As it grows light, the footsteps of those who walked ahead
finding debris of promises washed to shore, frozen by their spent fuse
and silvery starlight echoing her distant mockery of possessing any
certainty
those, who for some reason remain here, despite themselves
hollow in the want for familiar arms to gather them up whole
pressed to a beating heart, the murmur of security bound in
crescent sky.
A reddening brings the dream, she swoops low and achingly,
casting silvered birds from their reverie
that we not succumb to our collective despair
finding the drawers and cupboards of truth ransacked and emptied
by unseen robber
and instead, wait by the edge, long in the rising sear of sun
blackening our backs with shadow
for the sound of her footfall, across the dunes, sunk in splendor.
Her journey long, she made it anyway, even in the worst heat
of midday, when insects burrow against the burn and her mouth
opened in an O for the drink of your love
a beacon on a jutting rock, watching seagulls mock the air
with white foamy lift
wanting only for you to need
in equaled measure.
Perhaps you dreamed of me
A few people said / write something succinct / shorter than your usual / elaborated rhetoric / don’t you know how to / edit and be precise in your / measurement of words / good writers don’t need / verbal diarrhea / they can mold meaning / certain as bending copper / to light.
She thought it over
Knowing it was possible
After all she’d written some very
Shaved and glutted poems
Once.
(It wasn’t her way and if you are not true to your way
then you may as well be another lemming / willing to leap / from cliffs edge
of course this precludes learning which is / a value immeasurable
sometimes you can learn everything and still / go back to drawing unrealistically).
Finding something – – – perhaps it’s not a poem or a form but a short story
In the elongation and manipulation of reality and precision. Imprecise then. Deliberately.
Long ago she had no words because she couldn’t spell well enough to write. So she drew. For hours. Reels of paper. Stories by picture. Things she needed to say. To no one listening.
When she saw Woman In A Red Armchair hanging in a burgundy room / the silence palpable aside / rain hammering outside / mercilessly / like a hundred mouths clamoring
she tried not to stare at the line that made the woman / female
but was drawn to it as she might have been / a real breathing woman
something exquisite and desirable / she longed to see a live flesh and blood girl
to touch her with her empty hands and run them over her / quivering flesh
until those colors swelled up / and she cried out / for the sheer torment and beauty
but
no girls existed / save those who / liked boys / there were plenty of them
why were they all heterosexual?
why wasn’t she?
In America she heard / there are entire schools / devoted or a byproduct perhaps / lesbians / and only-girls-schools / well don’t start on them …
living in the city / you’d think but you’d be wrong / a few pinches / mostly shorn / forlorn
empty eyed / emulating men / less female than / those who wanted to lie beneath them.
Where existed that / judge not / beauty / with /dark eyes
the missing / beat / savor / prosper / sail
to her / soul.
If she could have / found her all along / not searching years but moments / glimpsed
sight and immediately / both knew / this bond before / words spoken
even at 13
even before she were born
perhaps you dreamed of me
created in the stillness of your loneliness / that which you did not have / filling emptiness with yearning / I am born to be / the wet ink on your skin / a permanence / no longer waiting / arms outstretched / for dreams unnecessary / now we / are.
Never quite together / torn asunder / this year the blackcurrents come later / as if they knew / what wonders and nightmares / store / waiting behind the pitch / to come rushing / we tried / we failed / the frailty of emotion / it bleeds easily / like thin skin / gone a-blackberrying / on a listless day / no clouds nor movement / sky dim / with unspent rain / the longing stored up / causing pain.
Perhaps you dreamed of me.
I stood — uncertain — proud backed —
against the light
where shape can be outlined
most acutely
if then you’d looked — ephemeral — something unstated
in muted expression
what we do not say — what we hold inside — contains the greatest
message.
Return to me. Though you are gone. Through the shroud. Time be gentle. Time be cruel.
Different and the same. Recollecting nothing. There is the proof. Stained on our table. Where you cut yourself. On a sharp knife of desire. And I opened to you. Ballet within music. Rapture closed us together. Forgotten. How do you not remember.
That long night we ran barefoot?
Flowers close their drowsy heads. Against night. Sleep. An eternity. Wakening. We are
strangers. Again.
Loss. A pressed red petal against Italian paper. Seeking its watering. I am so thirsty for your return. My love.
Don’t have that kid
The therapist leaned back in her chair
light from the window framing the space in-between
“Your mother didn’t leave you now, she left you at six, many years ago
you cannot grief for, what you have never had.”
I thought of this as the clock wound its message of time
always against us, years apart, years unlearning reasons to love.
“What purpose is served in trying to reconcile when you neither know
why she has never loved you, nor what you did to cause this latest eruption
and given the certainty of it, perhaps consider, it’s the other way around, not
whole then broken, but always broken and never fixed.”
I tried to remember the last time I saw my mother. For a moment
I could not recall her face, or what she was wearing that last time
and my chest felt tight with anger at myself until it came and she
was real once more. I reached out in my mind, the way I have been
doing since childhood and tried to touch her, the image as always
grew dim and receded.
“The history as I understand it is, you never resented your mother
for leaving you at six, you defended this action when others condemned her
because you just wanted her to be happy, that was always more important
than your own happiness.”
I nodded dumbly. Silent and unable to articulate any further
response.
“She clearly did not wish to have children, that is no shame upon her,
however she did have a child and she left that child, with little regard for
that child afterward.”
I thought of the brief lunches, the walks down shopping districts, my
wanting to carry her bags even when smaller than her, a protective
fierce desire to do something, anything to win favor. How time seemed
so very, very short in those days, of fleeting moments built on years.
Want being the predominant emotion, desire for, longing, missing,
apart from, that continuation of chasing shadows.
“She had her own life.” I replied. Thinking of one of our last conversations
where she said; “Candy I don’t understand this need you have to be close
to your parents, I was never close to mine, you are an adult, you should
have your own life, when I married my second husband he became
my life. That is how it should be. We should not hold onto our parents like that
it is not healthy.”
As much as it cut me, like that metal string used to carve cheese blocks
I knew a part of me agreed with the part of her
who spoke of practicality rather than ‘duty’ and freedom over
the slavish obligation to ‘feel’ a certain way about people whom
many times we did not have connection with.
I recalled how much she disliked her mother, who was gauche, and
could not spell and only wore trousers and sensible shoes, who laughed
a lot and could sing bawdy songs and may have been unpolished
but also did not really defend her daughter against things
unbidden in the dark.
“My mother saw me as being like her mother, whom she
was not fond of. I was not the sort of daughter she would have chosen
had she had a choice, I had some things going for me, that she was proud
of, like my ability to socialize and make friends, she was always quite
cerebral and found it fascinating. She liked how I was good at gymnastics
and physical things, but my mind was not her mind, I didn’t inherit
her abilities, I was too emotional, too needy.”
“Perhaps it’s human nature to have a favorite child, to see yourself in one
of your children over another, to have preferences, but
if you condemn a child just for being different you are
instilling a life time of approbation and it seems, she was
treated very well by her grandparents who thought highly of her,
even her parents, building an ego and self-confidence, something
she never did for you, instead knocking you down, where you
didn’t have the ability to be so egocentric even if you had
tried.”
I recalled the time she told me she had never forgiven me
for my past crimes, I could not recall what they were, I do not
think she could either, it was more of a sour feeling she had
which I reminded her of, a mistrust, we both have that in
common, an inability to trust anyone, we do not sleep
sitting up, we take a long time to switch off, I found this
similarity comforting, she did not know it existed or the other
things we had in common, there were many.
“If I believed in myself as much as her, I would surely have
gotten a different response. But it’s a self fulfilling prophecy, if
you taint the ground water, the flower never thrives.”
In her garden, she grew roses, her mother grew roses too, one
Birthday I bought her many plants, she said they died because
of the weather, I knew she had not watered them, I did not
know how to reach her or please her. Lord I tried.
“She made it clear to you she did not need you or want you
in her life, she said she had not forgiven you for past trespasses
suggesting the woman who proclaimed not living in the past
held grudges from the past toward her only daughter
quite thoroughly.”
I knew what the death knell was, I knew it was a combination
of speaking out about my grandfather, her father, what he
was guilty of doing, and this, not out of malice or a wish to shame
but a desire to move beyond, to save, to love. It was the worst
idea and despite not being from a place of hate, was taken
as a betrayal, she is a lot like me, she finds it very hard
to overcome betrayal, it stays with her a long time, she
may grow used to pretending she is okay with it, but
at the back of her mind she seethes.
The second death knell was when my father, who
most of his life gave the text book definition of impartial
uninvolved, stood up for me against my mother not
wishing to destroy anyone but due to my illness and seeing
how much I had endured, thinking kicking me when I was
down was not right, he said so, and she never, ever
spoke to either of us again. My father who had lost his
brother decided this was okay because he said, life is too
short, although in truth, we were
all more than that, far more than that, our blood was shared
in a maze of snakes, I wished so much it had not come to
this place of emptiness.
“Your mother knows how to love and protect herself and that is
about it, she may feign love for others, but the truth remains
she is mostly concerned about surviving and whatever it takes
and that does not include you, never has, you are really an
after thought or something to feel guilty for.”
“I didn’t want her to feel guilty.” I said, thinking of
our conversation when she left, I am six, I sit in bed, my toys
are watching in the dark, their glass eyes gleam, she is crying
I have not seen my mother cry but maybe twice, I sense
she is on the edge, I want to help her fly, it doesn’t matter how
I feel it matters only that I save her, I tell her I love her and she
must do what she needs to. I meant it then, I mean it now, and
yet she thinks I am her enemy
which destroys me, every time I think about it, with her
father, the true enemy of us both, but she cannot allow this
truth to exist, as he is her maker, she must venerate his memory
even as he caused this breakage, even as we pay him homage in
our exile, she would choose him over me, the daughter whom
despite her belief otherwise, has never betrayed her, has never
been against her. I hear her say to me; “You must talk badly about me
as you criticize your father to me, you must equally condemn me to
him when you speak, you are two-faced, I have never trusted you.”
Words can be knives, they can be sharper than nightmares
piercing our armor, our very life blood, the sustaining force
we try to hold together with rags and pins, I wanted to scream and
say; “Please do not see me this way, you say I scared you with my
illness and you can not handle me calling upset, or afraid, yet
your husbands ex wife called regularly with just the same, you did not
banish her, and your husbands daughters did nothing of what
I did all those years, yet they are never wrong, how can this
double-standard exist when you know the truth?” My last
words; “I will always be here for you.” Asking her to speak to
me, be in my life, give me nothing but that, and she has
that power to say no, which she uses.
She would not hear because she has her version
although truth has no version only truth
I wish so much she could see how things really were
how beautiful we could be in those moments when
it worked and we laid down any grudge in favor of joy
life after all, is so short, so very, very short.
When you don’t matter to your own mother it is
hard to imagine why you should ever matter to
anyone
this is probably what I have struggled with the most
all of my life, though that is my fault for not being
stronger
feeling I am not worthy and there is no reason anyone should
want me or love me, or not betray me
I try hard, but I fail, again and again
it does not help that nightmares come true, you fear
and so it happens, she walks away, she does not
look back.
I hear her laughing somewhere, I hear her
living her life without me until one of us is gone for good
and then it will be forever too late
“She told me she read a poem I wrote years ago where
I wished that she was dead, but that was not the poem
I wrote, I wrote that I had felt the loss of
her all this time as if she were not alive, because when you lose
someone who is alive, it is worse in some ways than
when they are dead. That is what I meant, but she chose
to see it as my wishing her dead, which is the opposite
of every prayer I have ever had. As a child I would beg
the God I did not believe in, to save my mother
to keep her from harm. And the God I did not believe in
would not reply. Angered maybe that I did not, could not
believe or have faith,
in anything.”
The therapist remained silent, I knew from experience
a mixture of wishing I could just get over my goddamn
childhood and grow the fuck up, or is that me talking? Is
that my mother? I hear her voice often, sometimes she is
singing at a piano in the bar where she met my father
and I am as yet born, I go up to her, I am wearing a black
jacket and it has piping down the sides, I ask her not
to keep the pregnancy; “Take it from me lady, it’s better that
way, if you believe one thing, this is it, don’t have that kid.”
And I have a Southern Drawl which of course I have
never possessed, but how I wish she heard me and
I was never consummated, even as friends decry this, with
platitudes of; “Oh but think of the difference you have had
on this world!” Oh give me a break, none of us really matter
and if we could undo our existence, is that so bad? Is it as
wrong as taking an overdose? No, of course not, so get
over it.
I recall once she said I would
never be as talented as her and I could not write and then
I showed her my novel and she actually liked parts of it, yes
she cannot help condemning and criticizing, it is who she is;
The Editor, someone who knows and has a red pen
the very opposite of her parents, her weak mother who
did not stand up for her, her father who loved her the
wrong way, but what is wrong between blood? A lot I think.
When she liked a part of it, much as she tried to say it was
all irredeemable, I saw the surprise on her face and that
tendency toward hurting me and I felt happier than I ever
had just for a moment, before it was lost, thinking she was
proud of me. “You can’t take that away.” I shout up to
The Fates who have decided we are not to be together
in this life time and since there is no other (life time)
this is it, a separation, every day I live knowing she lives
and we are apart, it feels like someone has a hot iron
they are pressing it against my heart. Maybe it makes me
who I am, someone who cares too much, not everyone’s
cup of tea. Some people hate me on sight. Just like that.
I wonder, did she? Did she? Did she?
She said; Don’t lie about who you are,” but
we have all done it, it’s part of our fantasy, especially
if we hate ourselves, the only choice, else we’d not be able
to do anything and that was my father’s choice, one I
didn’t want to emulate, I had to find a way to function
without excuses, she couldn’t understand, she has a lot of
self faith, I had none, she abhors liars, but she lies too, only
better.
You see, I looked up to my mother
she used to say; “Never have idols, they are unhealthy.” She also
told me not to drink orange or apple juice, I did listen and
now I have no cavities, that is her doing, many things are
her doing, good things along side holes and pits. But
she was her own idol just as she was mine, so really
that’s a moot point, for a little child, watching her mother
who is always out of reach, I hear myself say; “Please. Please
don’t go away, don’t do this again.” Maybe that is
why she did, because she had the power, over me
who else would ask her to stay? Who else wants her?
Or any of us? Who? Foolishly I thought as we grew
older she would need me, that was a really stupid
thought, I berate myself, I never did predict her,
she is quite wild and untamed, a good thing, my heart
has loved her unwaveringly all these years
it has made me who I am in so many ways
good or bad, such as it is, I have grown on
a mixture of pain and loss, like a thin weed
can make life from between two stone slabs
but usually come the first flood or drought
it will be the first to
wither. She said; “You caused yourself to get sick”
I could tell her what the doctors said about smoking
during pregnancy or how my stomach has never been
okay, how can a child cause their own sickness even
before they get sick? No. No. It wasn’t me.
She is rarely sick, she has the fortitude of someone
who would will away sickness, I believe it. I try, I do not
succeed. Many times daily I speak to her in my
head just like when she brought me a marzipan frog
from a trip and I could not eat it, as it would mean
losing something of hers, so I coveted it, and she said;
“that’s so pathetic, you always do that, look now it’s spoiled and you
did not even get to taste it.” I could not tell her
“Oh yes I did, every night, when I looked at it, I thought
of you and hoped you loved me, and this gave me
so much joy, I was literally grown fat with it.”
The song of her
My fantasy was placed in a velvet box, buried at garden end where the ivy grew heavy
those were the days gone now, or perhaps forgotten, where fantasy was all you had
walking into bars, confronting realities better spared
shadows in corners, leaning, lurching, enveloping, retreating
you did not exist, we did not exist
our images were not part of the collective, the minority, the clique or the open space
wide and tumbling with questions, a loneliness at the core, the petals red
filaments of each others minds like fire flies without dark to make of it light
had you existed then, I would have traveled continents, just to know
feel your long black hair trace my need to be, closer than possible
only books, only songs, only walks on moors with other people’s dogs in tow
I imagined meeting you, what you would say, how we would get to know each other
and somehow shape the magic to follow
but it was only ever like the rain, predictive in falling but without control
impotent magicians we, beseeching the moon her unearthy feminine
pieces of me, pieces of you, strewn in directions not able to connect
I stayed young in getting old and before you know it, you’re no longer there
hunched over youth, abundant in dream, filled with need
chewing the heads off time, gnawing the bones of ancestors who disapprovingly gaze
instead you have learned to bottle your desire that the world create girls who love
from marigolds and pieces of ourselves cast to the wind
put it somewhere you won’t be ridiculed, join the line of other pursuits, a job, a direction, all taking me away from fantasy becoming true
the lines on my face, the fall of my skin, these things that shock and horrify
only remind me of what I once was, bright teeth, shy smile, large heart, empty pockets
how I longed for you to take my mittened hand in yours and
drag me out of myself, let me know you don’t have to fit in with the crowd
to feel love
in petrograph, in Kodak camera moments, in the unmade bed in the corner of my desire
I wanted you before you could put words to desire
I was born alone in my 1 or 2 percent of the world
a girl who loves other girls
yet it wasn’t plural, it feels when I touch it
circular
as everything I did and everything I lost
returns to this moment and winds around my wrist
showing my scars, developing an image in chemicals
of two girls even if they had to wait
after the storm and before the calm
did I mention I would stay here forever if I had to?
It is my wish we could rewind time and begin again when both of us
were new and shining
but such things are not always possible, and fantasy is rarely permitted her turn
in you I find proof of life
miracles, however tired exist in your eyes
they have fine lines like you are ever squinting against the sun
I find myself tracing the shape of you
over and over
until my fingers are numb with joy
maybe born too late, but oh we were born
in this aching world of few and far between
I listened closely and you gave up your song
Ode to E — hijacked amygdala
I used to turn down drugs with frequent kiss of teeth from 13 years old when they came in the sticky palms of acne faced kids at parties all twinkly and bold, I said I didn’t need them, my teddy and my hope were salvage enough from any monsters, what need had I of medicated […]
Possess no place
a day may show itself
long or near from now
where pain and fear possess no place
their greedy place at your table outstayed
uninvited guests
came into your life, wrecking balls
fathomless of the despair they could put
as wicked times will have us ensnared
forgetful of former peace
hostages to the ease with which
sickness makes strangers of us.
Who inhabits this body of pain?
when did normalcy include such horror?
what lurks behind the shell of our discontent?
masking the urge to cry out with futile restraint
who do we hide our agonies from? Or is it that obscene need to appear
while and strong? While behind public doors we collapse in mock
no succor for the actor of their own wellness
Give me hope we clamoring souls sing in our flung prayer and rage
let me believe
believe again
find the keys, the healer, the drug, the end of
this
or I think I wish
I never existed
a thought I’ve had many times before
though none are without regret
some of us excel at impoverished thought.
I do not remember the me before
mornings of hurt, nights of pain
was she a creature capable of delight and desire?
did I feel alive?
Sometimes it’s hard to know
the fall is long down rabbit hole
make me
myself again
whomever she was
a better dream
than this
slow living just above not existing
hardly realized
quiet in accepted
thirst
for another grasp at hope
for any
recourse
where fear and pain
possess no place
We cried a long time ago. We don’t cry anymore.
A warbling, holding, green glass pain
Like joined hands make paper cut
Invisible like girl in crowd, falls
Deep as ink without light
Stinging with clamoring cymbal
Tears almost bare themselves as first night lovers, tremorous
Retreat beyond the naked streets
It is not brutal gnashing strength
But soft lipped resignation
And a little elipsing hope
For bare faced ceasement
Lain like prayers and rushes and thrown flowers wetting paving stones
No ceremony. Only, black cars devoid of dust
A trail without salt. They bent lower to seek. Not yet.
It’s hard to say it. The wind chokes words. Before.
We walk on. Omphalos in fatigued lament
Toward reprieve, illuminate in muted tempest.
I AM A TOTEM OF MY OWN BRANDING
I’ve been told I’m a chronic pain in the ass
after all, it’s easy to destroy a child in an adult’s body
with past-tense words
and now in the time I’m meant to be at my strongest
chronic has visited me and stayed a long while
on a good day I think; This will not be forever
but temporary has always been a long way off
the doctors love to tell us; It’s incurable, get used to
living like this, hostage to something unknown and strange
as if that’s a normal thing to do
but if enough of us live with chronic illness, it will become normal
and that is not a good thing.
Before this …
I took chances, because you think
I’m invulnerable, sometimes I can fly
health, you take for granted
though I truly convinced myself, I had checked the boxes
right weight, exercise, organic, vegetables, no pre-made meals
(well, this is what I told my doctor, sometimes a couch counts as exercise, right?)
if I ate a slice of pizza, it was a treat with friends
though I like root beer, I never drank it
maybe making up for cigarettes, smoked in my twenties
but I thought if I keep jogging, if I keep living healthily
I won’t be felled, because you ARE WHAT YOU EAT.
A few months before I got sick, I recall
feeling strong, climbing through snow drifts and laughing
boundless energy, working long hours, feeling intensely alive
people saying; you look so healthy, your skin is radiant!
Those are not things people say now, unless
I apply a lot of make-up, to camouflage my fraying edges
instead it is me, who declines invitations
I am sorry I cannot go with you to eat, even though eating out
is the number one leisure activity where I live
because my stomach is ruined and I cannot digest much
I live plain and simple (and boring), like a nun and I am numbed
to the pleasures of wine and sauces and garlic, spices and oils
not recognizing my bloated mid section in the mirror
from the girl who once was told
she had an hour-glass figure, with a wasp waist
could run for buses and catch them in three-inch heals.
I know everyone has their burden
but when you get sick and it doesn’t go away
life becomes a series of scolds and let downs
you find out who really loves you and who harbored an anger
used the opportunity of your downfall, to insert a knife
it is the cowards way of course, but freedom of sorts
for none of us need, that kind of negativity in our lives
there is a blessing in disguise, when you find your tribe
the people who care and know the real you
not wanting to tear you apart, because it’s easy to kick you when you’re down.
But blessings do not salvage, the hours you spend sickening
remembering how you were rarely felled in past years
strong of body, sound of mind, juicing and walking ten miles
everything is turned upside down, inside out when you find
a burnt fuse, at the end of your outstretched arm.
There is no cure, there is no future
when you live, in a jar for the jarring
for a long while, I blamed myself
maybe in part, because someone I trusted told me;
“It is your fault, you must have somehow caused it”
easy to throw stones, at glass houses
I was a glass house, with many windows
break one and I cannot repair it
the wind will come in and make of my space
chaos
the sun will come in and make of my peace
madness.
Those things that brought me joy, were gone
instead, the regiment of illness strode in and stood firm
you cannot feel passion, when you are sick
ageing in hours, rather than decades, trying to stay above water
it is hard to feel hope
you rely upon the kindness of others
which is hard to do, if you are not used to it
and when they lift you to the light, you promise
if I can recover, I will try ever so hard to never be ungrateful
but with every mercy, is a dark day in hell
those days take it all out of you, like a scourge
the sickening can age you, more than a nightmare
one minute you recognize yourself, the next you are unknown
vulnerability, of not being able to take care of yourself
the expense and fear
your world crumbling around you.
These are things you get used to and when you have fallen
to the bottom and can no longer get up
that is where the truth lies
that is where you can find
your true self and the end of fear.
They tried to tell you that you were insane
making it up, all in your head, something’s wrong with that
crazy lady who pounds her fluttering chest in vain
tries to catch the eyes of doctors, with beseeching side-glance
SEE ME! HEAL ME! SAVE ME! WHAT IS WRONG?
WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME? WHY DID I WAKE UP ONE DAY
SICK AND IT NEVER WENT AWAY?
And yes ! Something was wrong with me and still is
not my doing, not my causing, not my dreaming
despite you saying; You bothered us, when you called and were upset
no mercy, no mercy, no mercy, that is not love.
Helped me let go. Don’t hold on to negativity.
Oh doctor, get it outt!
and if you can’t, then give me the key, the saw, the pick
so I may survive myself and somehow continue on.
Am I to label myself chronically ill, or in recovery?
Surviving or dying or all of the above?
how do you define what doesn’t go and doesn’t kill?
Spending all your money on alternative treatments that
don’t even know what they pretend to cure
how do you describe one good day, followed by one in hell?
others won’t understand, because they are well
what I would give to return, to that safe water place
but even if I did, I would not be the same
you live years with a loaded gun to your head, everything changes.
I am not me anymore
I cannot see out of my left eye
I cannot lift heavy things, with my weak foreign arms
I can walk ten miles and not break a sweat despite this and be told
by friends and foes; OH YOU DON’T LOOK SICK
I am an apparent scar of contradictions and pain
I hurt every day, my stomach feels like
something is eating me from the inside out
it convulses and retorts and shouts
“you will never win, you will bathe in pain the rest of your life”
but I will still try
because I don’t know how to give in to enemies, I cannot see
and even as I cannot eat normal food
one day I am good, the next I am dying green
even as nausea, has become my constant companion
and bottles of pills and vitamins rattle in my pit
even as I fight to be gracious in the eye of the storm
and those I thought would stand by me, try to drown me instead
I know there is still a moment
I am well enough to remember who I am
never to find that peace of mind again
but maybe recover to another state of being.
I wake in the night covered in sweat and the disinterested doctor says
“get used to not sleeping, get used to all of this, it is what you must suffer and many others do”
as if it is normal to be like this, as if it is something we should not mention
I will never think it is normal to be hijacked!
I jog into the forest, because it reminds me I am still living, my feet still work
I fight with wilted hands, when they tell me there is no hope
that I should just consign my former glories to a picture album and put
my feet up for a fifty year occupation of sofas and couches and day time oblivion
because THE POWER OF ME can overcome the power of negativity and this I believe
as I see in the mirror a girl who doubts but stares back unblinking.
I have lost my will at times
I do not write as much, I have less energy
the last time I had a romantic dinner was in a dream and I
sleep with a heating pad on my stomach every night instead of a lover
but I still pay my own way and my own bills
I have a pride in pushing back against status quo
DEFYING the prescription of HOPELESSNESS.
they tell me go on disability. Just give up
I am not going anywhere, but to the finish line
I learned
by losing everything and having nothing but
the sheer will and dim light of my existence
I can do this without those I thought I had in my corner
because I am stronger than I realized
and this grieves me, as well as reassures me
but I come from a long line of stoic, strong women
and it seems sicker than I am, that we should hate each other
because life, surely we have found out, is fragile
and love is all that makes sense
but even without love I will continue and not
let the flame go out.
Sometimes I ask myself why?
why not just give in? Take the knife, swallow the pill
to oblivion or some non-sign-posted destination
I don’t have children to protect
it would be easy to slip out of this world and its sword edge of pain
but somehow I feel I should protect myself
maybe because others did not
maybe because you defend yourself in the end
when everything else is fallen and you are still
somehow, standing.
I am weak and tired and prematurely aged into
a hunched over version of myself
hair greying with shock, skin is sloughing off and my
body is tied to the rhythm of a sickness that purges and gluts
I was told this kind of disorder was permanent
but nothing I have found, is ever guaranteed
so I have chosen to ignore this and believe
we can all fight and overcome
anything
even a death sentence
even betrayal
even silence
and when we know this
when we are strong for our weakness
realize our tears are just water and salt
burning the frustration of our visiting menace
then, we know nothing can hurt us, more than it already has
and we are free to dream
of a future without so much pain
where death stands to the side and lets us regain
some of our former dignity
for there is nothing dignified in sickness
and you don’t know me when you said I was glamorous
that is the last thing I am
I am beautiful for my courage
beautiful for my fear
beautiful for my survival
beautiful for my defeat
beautiful for my mercy of those who have no mercy for me.
And life is a wax and a wane
life is a torture and a friend
I am the totem of my own branding
I may live in a time where nobody else of my kith and kin remain
and once that would have filled me with pain
now I know you cannot rely upon
labels of safety
it is only by looking into the hearts of those
who stayed by your side when the storm hit
even if it is one, even if it is naught
you remain behind
the tempest cannot roar forever
eventually even agony ceases.
I wish now, to be everything you were not
to love others unconditionally
care for those who are in need
be the change I want to see
I want to find myself
at the end of all of this
I want to tell you, sickness
you do not win
you are just a miasma
I am a spirit with a soul
I will endure you
the me, of me, will remain
long after, to remember her worth.
Before this all began and through it, learned
only the fierce remain
only those willing to FEEL
and not those who run from feeling
with the ease of the damned.
TheFeatheredSleep 