Off I Go

To all the multitudes of curious and caring souls who take the time to read my blog, I am sorry (and so very thankful) to say GOODBYE. Just as I reinvigorated my lust for writing on this blog, I will be absent yet again. 3-6 months. Not prison, not a gallivant to Europe. But into rehab where I belong, where I will find myself, my strength, my internal core. I will feel pain...and it will be beautiful. Any and all prayers of any spiritual sect are graciously welcome. Love, kiss, and hope!
Yahnilei

How Much Do I Say?

My biological father sent me a lovely card just a few weeks ago, after I hadn't written in a year and had sent him a typed letter, matter-of-factly stating I was on my way to entering rehab. His response was heartfelt, unexpectedly sincere and concerned. he wrote, "as he was a non-recovering alcoholic himself, he was not one to set an example or even worthy of dishing out the advice he was about to give, but...because he loved me, he needed to share these thoughts and antidotes" (to paraphrase). I cried when I read his words. His words, also unexpectedly, stamped out the impeccably sly relapse I was planning that very day. I was grateful. I cried some more. He said he wanted to be closer, to know me, to understand how and why my life had pickled and soured and saddened so much that I was now in such destructive, vulnerable state.
He wants me to share with him. But how can I? Where do I even start? Do I bombard him with it all at once, or slip in a few despairing pieces at a time so as not to irritate his current heart condition? Do I say, okay, daddy, this how it started, this is the progression? You wanted to know me; please, don't despise me once you know, okay?
Sit down in a soft chair while you read this, light some candles, drink some chamomile tea, have an ashtray and at least two packs of cigarettes handy and here we go: You left when I was two. You know this. But I didn't know why. Mommy wouldn't tell me, just that is was best that you were gone. You moved an hour away, but I rarely saw you, heard from you. Who was going to bake my Winnie the Pooh birthday cakes; who was going to lull me to sleep with smooth whistlings of a flute; whose large arms were I going to run into when I woke groggy-eyed, and call me his sweet-pea?
Mom remarried when I was five. A younger man. Charming, attractive, large, warming arms. He molested my sister and I for five years. Mom claimed she didn't know. We didn't tell. She divorced him shortly after, due to secret affair with her best friend.
One year later, mom married again. We moved to Hawaii. I didn't hear from you for years. Step-father three was a decent man, kind but quiet. Closed arms and distant eyes. We called him by his first name, never dad, never father, unless we wanted money, a ride somewhere, permission to have a slumber party with shnappps, pot, and maybe a few boys. he made our mother happy and we kept our distance.
I started drinking at thirteen. Mom gave it to me. Said she'd rather have me drinking at home, under her watchful eye, than off somewhere doing god knows what. She didn't want to worry. Didn't want to be left in the dark. She had a strange aversion to secrets. So, I drank openly, smoked cigarettes, dabbled in a few other recreational drugs, and luckily found them distasteful. I became promiscuous, wore brighter lipstick and shorter skirts. My sister shaved her head into a dyed black mohawk and wore pentagrams. I became the town slut; she, the town witch.
As a teenager, I found out why you left. Overheard mom and a childhood girlfriend yaking away over bloody marys one morning. She said you beat her. For five years, you drank, became enraged, and beat her. Sober, you were sweet, creative, astoundingly intelligent. It took everything she had to leave you. I had never seen you angry, or even what I would consider "drunk." But I also didn't realize mom was a drunk, as well, so go figure. Call it naivete, or suppression if you will.
At sixteen, I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and a social phobia. I would stick my head in the freezer, refuse to leave the house, bite my nails to a fleshy, bloody pulp. My friends teased me, unmercifully. I drank more. It calmed me, stuck a smile to my face like duct tape, gave me permission to find warm arms wherever I wanted. To find love wherever I needed.
I dropped out of highschool, was barely ever home, slept in unfamiliar beds, woke with splitting headaches and dry heaves every other morning. Mother gave up. She didn't want to worry anymore, refused to cry anymore over her morning coffee laced with 100 percent proof kaluha. She let me do as I pleased, laughed at the hickeys I came home with, mended the slashes on knees from drunken falls on lava rocks, rocked me in her arms when yet another boy broke my heart. She told me "everything would be okay." And I believed her. I had to believe her.
I left home at eighteen, followed what I had deemed love from state to state, fell into an abusive relationship myself at nineteen. One hit and I was gone. For a month or two. Another hit, gone again. This went on for two years and then mother died. Healthy one day, seizure the next, died 3000 miles away from a brain tumor three months later. I didn't get to say goodbye.
I drank more, dropped out of the college I had just started. Found a lover in a man I hated and got pregnant just a few months after she died. I felt like an orphan. I was alone, uneducated, unemployed, and knocked up. My godmother took me in. You might remember her; she was there when I was baptized, when I asked if I was an angel now. My son was born, named after mom. I started college again. Anxiety and alcoholic throughout, but functioning. Graduated five years later with an A average and a stubborn streak of knowing I would write. If i would do anything in my life, I would write.
A year after graduation and I still couldn't find a job. I became diagnosed with acute depression, slept all day, gained a profound amount of weight. I almost married a man I didn't love, a habitual liar, just to escape the eight-year- run in my new "mommy's" house. I shaved my head right to the roots; beat you to it Britney...Ha!
met another fellow, ran off to Reno. Lived in a half a million dollar home I helped design. Got a puppy, learned to drive. Drank everyday with a man who didn't love me, thought my anxiety was a form of schizophrenia. All in all, he was a good, solid, stable man. All in all, I screamed that I wasn't his god-damned maid. He kicked us out; I found what a knife could be used for. An unsuccessful attempt at another way of numbing my consistent failures.
Moved back in with "mommy." Got a bit more plump. Became agoraphobic. Reluctantly agreed to try meds. Had a six-month run at age 31 at what I'd call a good life. Found a job, stopped drinking, squished into a tiny studio with my son and I that was all mine. Finally, something that was all mine. I made my own decisions. I even made some good ones. I worked hard, exercised, ate healthy, lost fifty pounds of flesh. My son missed my soft tummy to lay on night over sitcoms.
And then I was cute, tiny. Men noticed me. Women, too. They wanted me again. I fell into arms, young, old, muscled, thin. As long as they were warm. Yet they wouldn't love me. They kept leaving again and again. And I drank again. And again.
I met a man in the midst of this. My soul mate, I told myself. He loved me. Didn't "need" my body, but took it softly if offered. And I loved him, love him still. Even though I drank, cut myself, took an overdose of pills, slunk into other mens' beds after high-vocaled fights and then pleaded for forgiveness.
So, here I am, dad. Now you know me. Now you know why I am where I am in this life I have self-sabatoged for myself. Nice, little package, isn't it? Do you truly want to know all of this? Is it necessary to understand? Do I want your sympathy? Your forgiveness? Do I want to blame you? Do I want you to feel defeated? Feel remorse?
I still don't know what I need from you. In your eyes now, I may be seen a victim. But I do not want to be known as that. That is not "all" I am. And that is not "all" you are either.
So, dad, where do we go from here? How much are you truly willing to hear? Your heart is already weak; my intention is not to shatter.

I Would Have

For the last few months, since I quit my job as a caregiver for a Senior home, I have not once neglected to scour the obituaries in the local paper. There has not been a name I have recogized. Until yesterday. My dear big ole' Jimmy died of pneumonia at age 83. My heart felt a sharp pang, a needle prick of sorrow for an unusually short time. I was surprised how fleeting the grief was. Had I still worked there, his illness would have been a sympathetic obession with every shift. I would have wiped his brow, played soothing music, held firmly onto his hand as the life it contained was slipping away. I would have neglected my other duties, the other residents, rationalizing that this is where I needed to be. That he could not be alone. That he had to know he was loved. I would have left work exhausted, bereft, fearing the next day. Imagining clocking in the next morning, turning to the bullitin board and seeing his name scrawled in chalk that he had passed away the night before. Maybe just a few hours after I had left, maybe a few minutes. My head would grow numb. I could have bashed it against a concrete wall and nothing, not an inkling of physical pain. I would be in a cloud the entire day. I would ignore any laughter, any attempt at merriment. I would ignore all the living around me. I would have left work, riding my bike in a torrent of rain. I would have been shivering, drenched, bangs plastered to my forehead, water dripping from my nose down my blouse to the rounding of my stomach. I would have felt nothing. I would have parked my bike at the Bi-Mart, rushed in with head down, rubber soles sqeaking on the aluminum. I knew the aisle by heart. With eyes closed, I could have found it. Peppertree Grove Cabernet Savignon in hand, I'd squeak back to the check out, swipe my card, ask it to double-bagged, wrapped like a twisted present in a paper sack first. I couldn't allow it to break while swinging in the wind on my handlebars. I would have made it home, my son still at after school care, plucked out the cork, and taken the first lingering swig straight from the bottle. It would fill in all contours of my mouth, slide along my tongue, teeth, pour down my throat like melted truffles. After two glasses , my head would clear, uncloud. My eyes would focus, colors magnified. I would have thought of Jim. I would have cried. I would have cried for everyone: my mother, my past lover, my grandparents, a great aunt, a cousin, a boy I knew in high school, the mother in the apartment fire, the addict under the tracks, the thousands across the sea from disease, typhoons, hunger, war. I would have cried for all of them. And then, ME. But I would not cry for me. I did not deserve the sypmathy, the care, the attention. The bottle would be gone now. And I would be angry. Enraged that I did not have more wine, that my son would be dropped off at any moment, that the numbing had ceased, that I felt alive. That I was alive. I was alive and all of them were not. They were at peace and I was abandoned. I would have called my babysitter then, begged for my son to spend the night, that I could not allow for him to see me in this condition. She would agree. She would protect him from my grief, my stumblings, my incoherencies, my fear. She would make me promise I would call, that I would not leave the house, that I would call my boyfriend to come over and take care of me. I would promise. I would lie. I would face the mirror in the kitchen, wipe the black mascara smudged under my eyes. I would put on fresh lipstick, call my boyfriend. I would be calm, voice soft and contained, telling him I needed him. He would panic, his voice an octave higher than normal. I would hear him wrestling with his coat as he stammered that he would be right over. I love you, I would tell him. I'm sorry, I would say. I would place the phone back on the reciever, stare at all the photographs of my mother on the wall, in frames on the bookcases. I would yell at her. I would yell at her for leaving me. For dying. For dying before I could hold her hand. I woud sit then, on the kitchen floor, curved back against the cabinets. I would lift my hand to the upper drawer, pull out something sharp. A steak knife. I would rub it roughly again my wrists, my shoulder blades, my upper thighs. I would push hard enough just for a plush welt to grow. Rarely blood. Rarely would I have the luxury of seeing blood. I couldn't even do that right. The front door would open. My boyfrind would run in, grab the knife, throw it in the sink, slink down next to me on the floor and cry. He could cry and I could not. Again, I'm sorry, is all I would be able to say.
Jim has died. But I was not there. I did not see the progression of his death. I did not hold his cold hand. The grief has already subsided. I do not drink, not for that reason, anyway. My son plays with a friend on his Wii. My godmother hangs christmas decorations. My boyfriend has not called me in two days. And I write this. I wait at my family's home, broke, unemployed, all my belongings in storage, waiting for the Alcohol treatment center to call me when an open bed is ready. I have waited two months already. But today, I do not drink. I do not think of knives. Today, I write this. And for now, that is enough.

Fire Within the Frame

Red cedar A-frame house
Sharp edges evident
from the inside

Souza's hair just
reaches her father's waist
My, how she's grown

An apron, stilettos, a strand of pearls
Seasoned ground beef
burns unnoticed

A whiskey sour nursed
above speared celery stalks
and the apron's knot

Second story spigot
Souza uncurls
in a tepid bath

Father's boots mount
the spiraling staircase
Hand-railings quake

Father cocks his head
inside the arching doorframe
Souza cries, widens her legs

Point-filed nails finger
pearls and collapse a stainless
steel lid onto the crockpot

Release of Grip

I secured myself a sponsor today.
I sat in the pink, cushioned chair, middle row, center, left knee over the right, wrinkling my toes up in my sandals. I listened, sunk it all in, laughed, teared up once, became distracted by my own thoughts.
And then there it was. The words I had been waiting for, anticipating, fearing:
"And now it's time for the newcomers to share."
I did not hesitate as I normally do, sink my eyes to the carpet and nibble on my bottom lip.
No, this time I spoke up. This was my miracle of the day.
"I'm Souza, and I'm an alcoholic."
To go any further into detail would be a breach of trusted contract, a disclosure to what is deemed anonymous. So, I will not.
I will say that by the mere announcement of words, by the simple act of speaking, I opened myself up to a world, a lifestyle, a community of self-worth and strength, of courage and support. But most of all, I opened myself up to hope.
Will any of this be easy? Hell no. I don't want it to be. But I will do what must be done.
My son sleeps in his own bed tonight. Has been for two weeks now. I am stretching along the lop-sided length of my pull-out couch. Cool sheets and satin comforter up to my waist. He is five feet away. He is safe. And I will wake him in the morning for school. He will go one way, and I the other, and in late afternoon we will greet each other in the middle, in the spine-tingling balance of things. I will say,"How was your day, honey?"
He will sputter off into a fourth grade language I barely understand, and I will nod and smile and tell him how great that is.
He will look at me then, sizing me up, intuitively reading my emotional state before his words become slow and cautious.
"How about you, mom? Was your day good?"
He might look at the wall or his feet or pretend to be searching for a misplaced video game.
He might run his fingers through his thick brown hair and hum a song under his breath.
He is afraid of my answer and he has every right to be.
Today, at least, I was able to say, "Great, babe. It was a really great day."
He smiles, jumps on his bed, twirls around his light saber and says how starving he is.
Tomorrow, I can't promise what my answer will be. I cannot give him that absolute safety every moment of his life, that absolute answer of, "Great day, hon."
But I have hope. And I have faith.
And the more nights he can curl under his own sheets and wake with me five feet away, so can I face life without a bottle in my grip.

We Do Not Run

There is never really an end point to anything. Not the dandelion stem, the apple core, the Coke bottle, the high school jeans, the universe. Love. Everything, however minute, continues on, transforms into a new material form, a new body of essence, of realization. It all keeps growing, changing, recycling into even more magnificence.
Patience. We have to wait for the wind to carry the seedlings to another corner of the lawn, wait until Spring for the apple core to bury its roots into soil, wait for the plastic to be crushed, melted, remolded into tupperware, wait for our daughters to fill in the hips of our jeans and argue over who gets to wear them to the mall, wait for the universe to expand into plateaus only our future generations will bear witness to.
And love. We will always wait for love. We will heal for it, be selfish and selfless for it, embrace it when it is near, embrace it even more when it needs mending, when thread and needle and a steady hand is not quite enough. We may take one small step back, but we do not run. We do not run from or to. We stay grounded in our place, take notice of the world around us, take notice of ourselves. Patience. Change. Acceptance.
Never an end to anything. An apple orchard where once was fallen, embered crops.

What is there to tell? Part 2

Souza's mother plopped down within the girls' inner circle, oblivious to the nervous laughter, the eyes of envy and guilt, Souza picking at a scab on her knee.

"Whatt'cha girls playing?" her mother asked.

"Truth or Dare," Molly answered meekly, head down.

"Oh my god, I haven't played that in forever. Okay, this is what we'll do. If anyone refuses the dare or acts like a little mouse and doesn't tell the truth, they have to swallow three swigs of beer. If they still refuse, it's a shot of vodka. Got it, girls?"

"I've had beer before. No big deal," said Malia, her red bangle bracelets flopping up and down her wrist in excitement.

Molly and Anna, identical twins, looked to one another, speaking their uncertainty through their eyes.

"So, we have a deal?" her mother spoke, irritated at the girls' silence, their hesitancy. "Don't worry, I won't tell your parents, sillies. This'll be our own little party secret. You're all spending the night anyway. You'll be safe here."

Anna shrugged, "Okay."

Molly followed her suit, though the shrug was smaller, more contained.

"Alright, let's start. Who spins first?" her mother spit out, noisily extracting five beers from the case and flinging one a t each girl's feet.

She then placed the vodka in between her own crossed, unshaven legs, the ice-frosted bottle leaning against her stomach, leaving patchy marks of wetness on her dress.

"Oh, that feels good. It's a hot one today, isn't it?" she sighed, looking at her watch. "Three O'clock, already? Just in time for Happy Hour, huh, girls?"

"Heck, yeh!" Malia answered, using her long pointer finger nail to pop open her can of beer.

Sour smelling foam erupted from the can like white lava, inching down the sides of aluminum and dampening the wooden floor.

Souza's mother laughed,an open-mouthed, inviting laugh. Malia laughed with her, licking the foam from her fingers as if it was frosting right from the bowl.

Souza could not believe any of this was happening. Where was Bobby, the hot pepper, the shirt tags at their necks? This was her party, her slumber birthday bash. She had had everything planned. This silly game, a half dozen Tiger Beat magazines on her bed with scissors and tape to plaster her walls with cutouts of Johnny and Cameron, Keanu and New Kids on the Block. She had popcorn and pajamas and her Molly Ringwald movie collection. The sleeping bags on her bedroom floor, pillows sprinkled with Jelly Bellies and Hot Tamale candies. She was pissed. Could she say "pissed?" Hell, god-damn, yes, she could. She could say anything she wanted, scream it into the blustering air. Tissy-fit tantrum right into her mother's ears.
She could do this. She could do all of this.
As long as her mouth was closed.
As long as her mind was her only listener.


To be continued...

What is there to tell?

Four girls sitting cross-legged in a circle
on a wooden patio floor with an empty
beer bottle spinning in the center,
glass mouth slowing to point at the girl
whose truth will be whispered behind
smooth, shaking hands or a dare will be calculated
between the other three. Arched eyebrows
and sly smiles, giggles bubbling in their throats
like a shaken soda can. Will she have to call
Bobby? Eat a jalapeno pepper? Parade down
the driveway with her clothes on backwards,
squawking and flapping her arms? What will
they have her do, what secret will she disclose
and make them swear on their mothers' lives
not to tell a soul, to keep their mouths locked
like a safe? It is Souza's fourteenth birthday.
Pink balloons tacked to the rafters, black
streamers sweeping from the ceiling, under
and over each other as fingers look when locked.
The bottle's mouth slid into Souza's bare toe
and stopped. "Truth," all the girls squealed
at once, staring at her like prey in a fire pit.
She sucked on the inside of her bottom lip,
sucked her gut in until she could feel ribs,
sucked the truth in through her fingertips,
her heels, the base of her skull, the odored
sweating between her legs. The sliding
glass door opened and Souza's mother
pranced in like an unsteady gazelle
with a case of beer in one hand
and a bottle of cheap vodka in the other.
"Let's get this party started, girls,"
she slurred between hiccups and a long
blonde mane flipping in her eyes
from the wind, the hot Hawaiian air.
The three girls looked from one to the other,
absolute glee, absolute fear. "Your mom
is so cool, Souza." "She's not gonna tell
my parents, is she?" "Eww, what does vodka
taste like?" "I don't know," Souza said,
her hands in her lap, eyes following
a large gecko to the edge of the patio's rim.

To be continued...

Hands

Souza was a child when she last saw him. Her step-father. Young. Virile. Manipulating hands. Now he is middle-aged. Haggard and worn, punished by the world. For armed robbery in his late twenties, drug abuse, self-inflicted wounds, instigated tavern fights, women with restraining orders. He had gripped metal bars, stepped over urine on concrete, read the bible and claimed salvation.
But Souza believed he had not been punished enough.
"Admit what you did to me as a girl, as your daughter," she demanded.
He stood there dumbfounded, a blankness to his eyes like paper without ink.
"I don't understand," he mumbled. Stuck his hands in his pockets and looked to the ground. Dry, arid earth at his feet. Wind whipping up dust on his shoes.
"You can't even look at me, can you."
He dug his boot into the dirt, shrugged his broad shoulders, looked again, for a moment, a boy of twenty-one. A new father. One she trusted and adored. Gripped her tiny fingers into his shirt sleeve as if he could fly away at any time, disappear as fast as bath water down the drain.
When he touched her, he loved her. When he struck her with the oak switch, she deserved to be punished.
"Look at me, you coward!"
He did not look up. Did not see the dark thunder clouds enveloping the blue overhead, rushing toward them swift as a river's current.
He did not see Souza's alcohol dependency, her years of trauma therapy, panic attacks that kept her from opening front doors, scars on her wrists, the men she let use her body like a Raggety-Ann doll.
He saw only the burying of his boots, the dust turning to carmeled mud as the rain sheeted down, drenching them.
Souza lifted her face to the sky, opened her mouth and swallowed the rain.
"I should go," he said, turning his boots, his shoulders, his covered hands away from her.
"Wait!" Souza yelled, swallowing what water was left in her throat.
He faced her, then. Eye to eye. Adult to adult. Victim to victimizer.
"What is it you want from me," he said cruelly. Clenched, tense fists out of pockets, spine straight as an iron rod.
She stepped back a foot. Fear resurfacing. The tow-headed girl in the bath with her barbie dolls, holding her breath underwater so the sound of boots mounting the stairs, the slow creaking of the bathroom door, the sharp, ridged sound of a zipper being yanked down could not be heard.
Souza stepped back once more, puddled muddy rain reaching her ankles. She dipped her head to the ground and whispered.
"Everything."

The Rising

Stretch like a feline, spine
curved, tailbone up, an urgent
humming of the skin--Oh,
let's give a name to all the outer
parts--infectious, protruding name,
a name the prods the outer edges
of the sheet, loosens tuck,
spills a cup of wine on white--
a name that lengthens teeth,
toenails, dark roots on the scalp,
a name along the lines of inner roaring.

Pedestal

It is time for me to think of my mother as human. For ten years I have miniaturized her into a precious, red-lipped porcelain doll and sat her gleaming down to the world on the highest shelf. She has sat there angelic and still in her floral dress and satin gloves, a fresh flowered lei hanging egg-shaped from her ceramic neck. I have replaced the lei every week, refusing to let the blooms wrinkle and brown, become stiff with age and lack of care. She has become the paragon of human life, of motherhood, of martyrdom. She can do no wrong sitting calm and scented on her shelf.
For ten years, since her death, this is where she has been, where I have placed her in my adult life. It is time now, as much as I fear it, to use my hollowed hands and bring her down.

To be continued...

I'm finally writing!!!

Dilated To Eight

(revised poem from 5 years ago)

Gravel-etched, worn hooves scrape the ripe
insides of my womb like unruly, unbroke
Stallions thrashing in a caged fence being
branded by red iron. I buckle over on all fours
to the slick floor and scream as a candy-striper
grips my monstrous girth with nails razor-edged
and painted like a Rodeo Drive hooker. She lifts
me into the wheelchair and barks incoherent
slang into my ears as a Sheltie would yap
into the fur-trimmed ears of sheep. I am wheeled
into the delivery room, botched metal wheels slanting
sideways, the scrape of metal on tile, tile on top
of wooden planks, wood covering concrete mounting
a full foot above soil. New surface upon old, synthetic
upon nature. Stinger-nosed needles fly in front
of my eyes and prick my skin sweating a sour apple
vapor. They puncture the shape of a semi-colon below
my bicep, grape-veined as if a hookworm drenched
in Chianti crocheted it with a drunk thread. The nurse,
an impatient dame of unmentionable age yanks
my legs apart and props them in the stirrups. “Push,”
I hear. “Bear down, girl,” I hear through mechanical
pulsing of blips on screens, the crisp rustling of curtains
opening, closing, opening again, screams of death
and life behind partitions separating rooms, distancing
our donations to the world. We shriek, thrash, lay
defenseless on our backs like grasshoppers turned
onto their wings in the grass, dependant on unskilled
hands to turn the feet back to ground. At last,
a frame, a hairless pointed cone, violet-seamed eyes,
prune-skinned toes, testicles the size of plums pushes
through my boned barriers into the nurse’s knotty-
pined hands. Dusk has crept in through the blinds,
smearing copper shadows against the wall once
a seedless melon hue. “Hello, you.” Who will you be
besides this mesh of thrift-store limbs, recycled
from my loins as an arch-angel with veiled wings
and a halo resigned to taper off as you age?
I will bundle you in woolen quilts before the frost
of night can chill. I will, my love. Lavish you
with lullabies, the sweet humming through the softening
of my throat. All, my child will be soft now.

Dream World

I had the oddest dream, as I usually do. Technicolor, grabbing action, laments and triumphs, the kind of dreams movies are made of.
It's beena few hours, so my memory is a bit muddled.
I was at a wedding. I don't recall whose it was. Tons of people were there, mostly old friends and acquaintances from high school, even grade school, people I haven't seen or spoken to in over a decade.
I was sitting in a laced and flowered-up chair next to a girlfriend of mine that Ive recently reconnected with. Everyone around us was crying and touching her shoulder and offering her condolences as if she was dying. I heard one person whisper, "cancer."
I looked to her. She was calm, seemingly in no pain or distress. I glanced down to her legs and the skin was raw and red and oozing violet puss. I was horrified.
I asked her if she was in pain.
"I'm dying," she said, "there is no pain in that."
I then looked around the room and it was empty but for dozens of elaborately decorated wedding cakes. I walked slowly by each one, taking the detail in, the beauty of each curve and swirl of icing, the fresh flowers cascading down the sides of the tiers like a garden falling down a bank of snow.
I wanted to dip my finger into each one, taste them, devour them. But I was scared to touch them, as if my fingers would be singed, burned raw, oozing puss like my friend's legs. I ran from the room, screaming, and fell to the wet sand, digging my hands in, covering them up to my wrists. I could hear the waves in the distance, but when I looked up, the sea was calm.

Maybe I'll try to analyze it another day. Ill get my dream dictionary out and get to work.

Back Jack

Oh, my holy high heck, I'm finally back. And of course, I have nothing substantial to say. Work is boring and stinky, my house is finally at a mediocre level of cleanliness, I'm flat broke, my kid is scooting away to the coast for 4th of July, so I get to cuddle up with my man for a full 48 hours. Don't know what we will do with ourselves...haha. God, I love being in love. And most importantly, I love being in love with HIM. I'm a-fluttering all over. OK, enough mushy stuff.
Now, I'm sleepy and want to go online and look at wedding bouquets just for the whatever of it. Geeze, I'm a bit on the pathetic side, aren't I?
I promise, I will write something more entertaining or poetic and meaningful soon. Ciao!

Five Feet Away

How old is too old for a son to sleep in the same bed as his mother?
My good friend Simone has a nine-year-old son. She is a single mother, never been able to afford an apartment large enough for an extra bedroom. even though her son's bed is a mere five feet away from hers, her son demands to crawl into bed with her every night. If she fights this, or tries to bribe him, or uses savvy, crafty language to encourage his needed Independence, he cries.
And not just whimpering. Loud, hysterical sobbing. As if a bomb has exploded in the backyard and the only thought of safety or comfort is his heels crooked into the back curving of mommy's knees. If he wakes in the night and Simone is breathing heavy and steady a foot from his face, all is good in the world. If he wakes in his own bed, even with the radio simmering and a small lamp glowing above his head, bad, bad things may happen.
The ghosts will float out, the monsters will inch their ugliness from under the bed, the wind against the blinds is really a bad man trying to break in, steal him away, hurt his mother. She is all he has. He needs to keep her safe as much as she must protect him from fears even he can't explain or understand.
Simone struggles with this, she told me. She realizes it is best for him, a priority at this age for her son to sleep in his own bed, to face these fears with sword and shield. But even she enjoys the comfort of another body in her bed. She can turn her head slightly and see the rising of his chest, the mouth open wide, the arms wrapped loosely around a spare pillow at his waist. She knows he is at peace, he is safe, he has loosened his fears from their grip just for the night at least.
Yet she feels like a failure. She is not tough enough or strong enough. She knows too little of discipline, having been coddled herself as a child, the baby in the family, the mother who was utterly selfless. Simone knows what she needs to do, for herself, for her son. He has even admitted he is ashamed that he still sleeps with her. If his friends found out, he would be mortified. He feels like a failure himself and either sobs or crawls into his quiet little boy cave, hiding like a cub from emotion he is not ready to feel.
I don't know what to tell Simone. Keep trying, is all I can say. Eventually he'll be ready on his own. He'll know when the right time is. Yet I don't know if even I believe this. What if she starts a relationship and that man wants to sleep in her bed? How will her son react? Will he feel abandoned, jealous, over-protective? Some kind of strange, yet innocent Oedipal complex?
I can only hug her and listen to her and offer thoughts I'm not sure of myself.
Motherhood is more complex than the makings of the perfect mashed potatoes. They may look good, be the right texture, creaminess, the right amount of salt. But if anyone ever knew the effort and compulsive attention it takes to make those white perfect peaks on your plate, they would faint at the thought of it. They wouldn't even want to know the secret. The fantastic, terrifying secret ingredient. They wouldn't want to know that sometimes you don't even know. You close your eyes, bite your lip, grab something from the shelf, and toss in the pot without looking. It's all just luck really.

Blog Appropriate

What is appropriate for a blog? For all the world to see if they so choose? Am I hurting my son by writing personal information about him, details into his childhood that he could accidentally read and feel embarrassed or ashamed by? Am I hurting my relationship by re-configuring our relationship and its ups and downs into fiction and poetry? I'm honestly not sure. Do I want to hurt anyone by my writing? Of course not. But I do not want to censor myself, or worry incessantly while I'm actually getting writing accomplished about who and how I will be disrespecting a person or situation. Does this make me selfish or cold or insensitive? I don't know. I do not write just to write. I write when I have something to say, something to feel, some wrangling of my mind to find answers to. As one should think before they speak, should one think before they write? I need to think of this for a while. Turn it around in my brain like a dryer on high for a while. And of course, while I mull, and think, and feel, I will write. Hopefully, I hurt no one's feelings in this process. Hopefully, I do not divulge too much. This sounds sarcastic, but it's not. More later on this subject. Bya.

The Body

It's just a body, isn't it? Skin, moles, freckles. Tendons, veins, soft purring of fine hair. It is flawed and it is beautiful. It can be used and it can be adored. It can be victimized and it can be lavished upon.

But it is only a body, an external version of self.

When does it become more than that? When does it become muscle and blood and organs and soul?

When you are loved, is it more? Does that love and respect and trust transcend the appearance of body and expand like blown glass into what is beneath the surface, beneath the desire, beneath the need to be wanted, accepted, the need to be more than just hollow air.

Can the love of self do this? Can the love of your child do this? Can the love of a good man do this? Yes!

I will be more than flesh, fine hair, and rushing blood. I will be the blower of that glass, the breath that gives the body life, the expansion of air turned to soul, turned to ME.

Swallow

Swallow

Snow falls like pillows
And God seems more far away
Than ever on this winter dawn,
Orange fastened to the sky like velcro
And I can’t rip it off, tear back
The color and make it dull again.
My son sleeps, crooked
As a curved spine in my bed,
Not his. My bed all night long.
He is afraid of his mind, of monsters
He cannot see or feel or play
Chess with at his little desk.
I smoke on the concrete of my stoop
And wonder if a man will ever love me,
Take me in like an orphan
And swallow up my fears
Like baby sparrows swallow worms.
The taste is good to some
If you trust what you’re given.
I wake my son; it is time for school.
Another day of learning and forgetting
All that was said. Another day of open
Mouths that do not speak, of hearts
That shatter like ceramic plates.
Of God who never comes to warm the air.

1/12/07

My dead mother talking to me

My Dead Mother Talking To Me

How can I make you stop from where I am?
I am only three feet above the floor.
My heels could rest on your ribcage and you’d never know,
Never feel the indentation, the hot pressing like an iron.
You ask to see me all the time but I can not give you that.
I can give you music, manipulate the sound waves
Into playing our song, our Irish sinking ship song,
Scrape the wall with just a feeling, and make
My photograph fall to the floor and startle you.
I can do many things you are not aware I can.
I whisper in your ear but you think it is yourself.
I wrap my arms around your chest but you think
The pressure is your panic and you swallow sedatives
Like you would a box of chocolate truffles.


(unfinished) 2/3/07

Submission

I'm not sure what to write today, but it has been almost a week, so I felt I was overdue.

Thanks to my dear friend Alana (Renegade writer) I submitted two poems to an open contest. Even paid a whopping eight dollars for the submission. I don't expect to win, but I need to experience this if I am to continue writing, writing about anything substantial. Be it beauty, bitterness, or downright monstrosity-ness. I just plain need to write, send them out into the world and see what happens. Maybe the gutter will seem closer to my face than I want, or maybe, a dragonfly will land on my hand and sit there for a moment, its quick wings slowing to feel the fine hairs on my knuckles.

Maybe someone will say my writing means something to them, anything.