The Left Behind

The slow into the curve

acceleration from the straight away

Moving in

Moving up

Moving on

Memories clicking in the rear view

Around the empty reel

Light shining white

In a black room

Soundtrack empty

Sound pulled out

Itching with blank space

Idling with routine

Baffled by dichotomy unknown

Blanketing under known

Picking and protesting and prostate

Then standing again

Missing not lost

Found not familiar

Delicious if you can but

Eat around the burnt bits

The left behind

Right ahead

Floating

For Jamie

They float in with the light

the ones who left

Not in reflections

Not in words

Gestures and turns

opposite from

everything I ever

planned

prayers condensed

still etched and smudged

Clean the mirror

and my face is still

only now

I don’t see before

Can’t remember yesterday

Maybe around the eyes

When I’m tired

I see then

Lights out

heat up

Looking for before

again

floating in

forever

Didn’t See

Who does your hair?

He asked me from the hospital bed

What size shoe do you wear?

Me.

Size 9. Maybe bigger.

How do you get it to stay like that?

Days of oil and a rubber band.

Why did you look away?

I didn’t.

No, listen, I need you to believe I didn’t look away.

That’s not me.

I don’t look away from ugly scars.

Blood doesn’t bother me.

Decay and shit and desperation.

I don’t look away.

Why?

What did you see?

Tell me.

What did I let you see?

Before you leave.

Please.

Tell me what you didn’t see.

Reflecting Shadows

Looking out

looking in

looking through

rounded panes

myopic 

too long focal length

can’t see

shuttered out

light kept inside

if you trust 

the reflection

not disctracted 

by the glare or

the intentional flare

artist in action

accepting allowances

for fighting 

ugly gnawing 

inspiration

the upside down

turned round

picture distorted

to reality

can startle to 

stillness

of inconsequence

look inside

your lens

leave the impression

to the glass

shatters can 

be swept

hearts are harder

to brush aside 

to shadows

fill

your light

Would Just

Thinking a lot about not fitting.

In place.

In arms.

In hearts.

How we say we’ll be happy if we “would just” …

We lose so much light in the cave of

would

just.

Would Just

You are

You would be

So perfect

If you would just

Adjust the smallest

Turn of your phrase

And the cut of your dress

Dress not for me

It’s for them

But so that I can see

See how much you could

Accomplish

Could if you would

Just attend

To the bends of

My will

Will you be available

Asking out of

Expectation

Not anticipation

Because the answer

Is no

Taking back you

For

I

Know already what I have to do

Who I need to be

Because that’s not on

Your list

Mind

So I persist

Me

And my heart

And my dreams

Fixed on our shelf

Because yourself

And your matter

Are what matters?

Time to scatter that

Shelf to the floor

Remind

I

Eyes to see and remember

The parts of me

that would

just

Make magic and

Absolution

Fulfill and

dissolution of fears

And defenses

Cause applause and

Reverence’s if you

I

Would just

Believe that

there isn’t perfect

If you would just

But there is beauty

And awe and

Spectacular love in

I

So if you

I

Would just

Trust

In me

That

Would

Just

Be

everything.

And I

I would just

Be

Perfect.

Her Light

She is

not your spotlight

Focusing attention in the darkness

calling everyone to look

So you see

What it is you can do.

Not your search light

To guide you into harbor

when you’ve sailed your ships

Against warning

Into black and chopped waves.

Not to blame for

Being the siren who lured you back.

She was singing for herself

Not the mirror you held up

So she could see the faults

Not her hand that

Turned and burned you instead

The silence of your fury

Louder than the

Sighs of your disinterest.

Not your torch,

to frighten back creatures

You don’t understand.

She has her own monsters

creeping to her doors

and learning her language.

Carrying torches

Only grinds down

arthritic arms.

She put hers down.

She can’t do it

Too heavy.

The lights are too bright.

headaches are

far too dug in and planted

Photosynthesis the

Power line to

Migration.

Her own screwed in

Halogen

Fluorescent

Mixed white and blue and

Orange

Not matching when seen back

in her balanced eyes.

Her palms aren’t

Scarred and fibrous

As as her heart

to hold the light bulb

In place with bare hands.

It’s low watt but

Still

her fingers blister

fluid leaking

slipping

And she doesn’t have the grip

To twist

Your glass fragile

Illumination

In place.

She is candles and

altars with incense.

Low glow and quiet alone

With her disciple.

One you whispers,

knowing a harsh breath

kills the flame.

Happy in the room

She left dark.

The sun rises tomorrow

Isn’t it pretty to think

So dawn soft

Smoothed hair

Hazy unfocused

hands

Touched in shadows.

Chasing away the light

For just a little longer

Not needing to be

The brightness

But wanted to be

the still silhouette

Casting her own

Direction.

From her light.

Exposed Wire

The electric doesn’t zing 

Because the wiring is frayed
Changed the bulbs

Changed the switch 
No light 
The other one

Half of the circuit

Turning on

Turning up
Still dark
Still static
Only risking 

entrance, exit of 

current 

being the conductor

not the dispersive
Peel the burn

skin charred 

from faulty connections
Turn on the light. 

Cracked

A light on 

for the broken heart. 

Haze through the cracks. 

Enough to feel. 

But not to fill. 

Looking For The Light

 

LIght.

I do a lot of driving.

A lot.

It’s the price of doing business with my current family, home, and my own life as a person being in different places. And I’m happy to do it.

Because I this, I listen to a lot of podcasts.

A lot.

My tastes run the gamut:  popular ( Welcome to Nightvale, Serial),  intimate or offensive (Dan Savage and Kevin Smith), obscure and nerdy (Sawbones and Dan Carlin’s Hardcore history), and movie-minded and political (Bret Easton Ellis).

And then, because the universe knew I needed it, I found Conversation with Alanis Morissette. 

Yes. That Alanis. Judge or smirk or eye roll. I couldn’t care less. I was in college in 1995 when Jagged Little Pill changed things and gave us a voice we hadn’t heard. (That and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.) But the respect remains. Anything that Alanis speaks or sings or writes, I will attended to with urgency and full consideration. And thank the gods and goddesses I did.

There’s been some shaking up in my world. My acute focus in the settling dust has been to learn as much as I can about myself and find the happiness there that i know is present and abundant.  For many years, I pushed away learning. That was where the scary lived. That’s where mirrors that showed you ugly truths about your character dwelled. Trying to control with shame and engulfing and avoidance were much more pleasant. Only now have I learned, just how detrimental that it. Letting go of control and accepting the learning as it is presented is the only way to grow.

Listening to the astute authors and therapists on this podcast have brought a clarity and distillation of truth that I needed. Especially her conversations with Dr. Margaret Paul. This woman…I would lick her brain to absorb that goodness if I could. Her work and methodology on Inner Bonding captured my intellect and started showing me a path to heal my heart. For real. Lick.

I’ve lived in my head for a long time. Because of that discomfort and insecurity with myself, I became a selfish sponge of those around me. I missed amazing opportunities. I passed chances of learning and experience. I shrank from wisdom. And I pushed away love with both hands. Good love that could have sustained and supported and grown. But, who wants that, right? Not this crazy broad.

So, on this gorgeous day of light, while I sit inside next to a snuffly and feverish kid ( the universe does enjoy its humor), I’m compelled to account to myself what I am incredibly thankful to have. Because despite being a giant, nightmare asshole to people close to me and my heart, I’m still being given more than I could ever deserve. Such as:

• The aforementioned snuffly kid. He is my heart and makes me a better person every day. I still can’t believe I get to be his mom.
• The ex who created this amazing boy with me. We have managed a life apart but intermingled, where we can respect our past and bring love to this present family. So few have such a gift.
• I have a job that pays a living wage. Because of that,  I can mange my family’s life and provide what we need and more.  We have a home and more books and shoes and t-shirts and Star Wars toys than anyone needs to fill it.
• I have a generous mother that fills in when I cannot. In ways of time, money, support and love. Even if she drives me to head-banging distraction.
• There is a small circle of friends that I can reach to for support. Not many and not far. But, when you have people with whom you can share wildly inappropriate texts and stories, it lifts you. Mistakes can be forgiven and they are willing to do it first until you can do it for yourself. And if you’re lucky, they will also tell you when you are wrong, and being an insufferable dick and that you should give that boy a break and apologize. And then they give you a hug and a drink and a recommendation on a good vibrator.
• I have health care. With a hefty monthly premium and an absolutely outrageous deductible. But, it’s still there. It affords me luxuries like only moderately expensive medication and some access to therapy. Healthcare for everyone is still very much not a thing.
• I am afforded the space and time to play. With people of limitless talent and creativity. There is space for me  a writing group of delightfully offensive and brilliant women. I’m constantly grateful that there is a place for me at their work table. And then I get to sometimes play make-believe in the most glorious ways. Last night, for just a moment, I got to be Mark Antony. And Brutus. And Caesar. I’ll likely never do that again. But for just a glimmer, I was. Let slip the dogs of war, indeed.
• Without stepping too far outside my comfort, I can acknowledge that I have some talents. To be a mother. To provide. To manage it all. Not cooking. I can’t cook for shit. But, I could write you a monologue about it. And if I did that monologue for an audition, I just might get a call back.
• The thing that hovers over all this, is that I’m in a place now where I can see all these things. It’s a place I’ve not traveled through  much before now. Most of my days and nights have been spent locked in my brain, safely guarded against any gnarly feelings that might try to come out and bite me. But, for this moment, I’m not there. I’m here. Body and self. Really here. Seeing. Feeling what I shoved in my boxes.  The good and the really, really, hard stuff. Which is really, really hard. And it really, really hurts. But I know it won’t kill me. I won’t stop functioning. I won’t lose my grip on sanity or my hold on myself. I’ll be fine. And someday, maybe, I’ll even be good.

Looking at that list is an incredible gift. Everything I will ever need is right here, in this space and in me.

Yes. That sounds so lame. I imagine a scent of pachouli and a gentle clinking of crystals tumbling as the background soundtrack. The chanting begins at sunrise.

And okay. Yes. There might be crystals. Rose quarts. One my bed, next to the love candle and another around my neck right now. There might be. Who ever really admits these things?

What I do know is that having light suddenly in front of you, and seeing it all around and touching everything is truly changing. There is warmth and illumination. It won’t stay. The evolution of us and our world prevents that. But, having seen it, I know it exists and that it will come back.

So, for this minute, I’ll set my mind in today and be present in my body and throw my arms with love around my snuffly kid.

For today and again for tomorrow and for the ones after, I’ll keep looking for the light.

Namaste, bitches.