You taught me to fight or fly
There was nothing in between
No place to rest or be still
Only wielding, only alighting.
In the war or looking down on it.
And to this day, when I sit or lay my head,
I feel the twinge, the pangs
Of how unnatural a state.
A fear sets in that there is not even a purgatory
For a warrior/bird, such as I ,
One who can no longer
Thrust a sword and whose feathers,
Once bold and brilliant, now wax dull and tattered.
Like some frumpy housewife
who, in her prime ,was a vibrant bride of promise,
everything I was told was an advantage
has turned out to be quite the contrary .
Growing up in church, infilling me with rage
at the brand of religious political “agendacized”
gobbledy gook they brandish rather than
bolstering my faith and drawing me closer.
Having two parents who are married
infusing a certain jadedness towards
relationships or anything resembling one
since it seemed I lived in a cell block of warden & prisoner
instead of a nirvana of devoted lovers.
Being called pretty infiltrating my innocence,
providing opportunities for a certain shallow
self loathing that only beauties come by
rather than causing me to to be cherished
enjoyed for the right things, if those things
indeed exist.
Being a citizen of Middle Classdom instilling
in me a sickening predilection for over priced education
and Ikea furniture, shoes made by orphans brittle fingers, homes with HOA fees
rather than some sort of all American work ethic and blind patriotism.
Yes the next time you look at someone, judging them as privileged, advantaged in some way
Remember that to every advantage…turn …turn…turn
is a disadvantage…turn…turn …turn.
I’m not sweet when I’m scared
I’m like Old Yeller
Under the house
Shivering, cramped and waiting
Keeping my jaw clenched
Trying to hold it together
Hoping no one will see
That I’ve turned and I’m
Not long for this world.
Words have saved me.
The scribbling of them.
The way they sound when read.
Those marks and formations
On sheets of white.
I know this sounds bad,
Being a person of faith,
But it’s true and in ways
I wish it wasn’t
That I was good enough
And fervent enough that
God’s love alone could do it
But maybe he knew,
Maybe he recognized
That words will save us all
Leaving us with only those
To refer to in chapter and verse.
I made it out of the badlands
And few ever will
I keep this in mind as I heal.
From the days on end of torrential floods,
Heat that knew no measure.
I prayed moment by moment
To see the other side,
Yet now that I’m on it
Looking over my shoulder,
Recognizing my flesh will always
Yearn foolishly for the singe of your sun
And the un predictable, harsh pulse of your downpour
Because I’m far more familiar with those badlands
Than any good girl ever should be.
Loving you is like breathing anymore
Like something I’ve always done
Without thought, without effort
And if I could rewind back to our first meeting,
Our first conversation, I’d lay it all out there
The joys we’d experience, though not leaving out
the loss , the lif we would crash headlong into
That we won’t be able to the brakes on
Yet strangely and wonderfully enough, I know
You’d still look at me and say “I’m in”.
And that’s why I chose you.
That gutsy, unadulterated lack of fear
That look in your eyes that said
“I’ve been waiting for all this, but mostly
I’ve been waiting for you.”
*for my husband Valentine’s 2016**************
I used to think P.T.S.D.
was a mysteriously horrific thing delegated
to soldiers, P.O.W.’s or holocaust survivors,
but there she sat in front of me
typing on her computer
assigning me to a therapist
for “P.T.S.D. due to an injury”
Even though that was over a year ago
I didn’t really wrap my head around it
until recently, when I felt my head throbbing,
heart pounding, my chest tightening,
that deer being pursued by a hunter kind of feel yet again
at just the thought of my life returning
to the state it’s declined to in three times
over the past six and a half years.
A state so far outside the fifty original
it would never qualify as a place to put on a map.
A state of down for the count, bed ridden, job lost
not knowing what quality of life I can ever hope to have.
A state of indifferent doctors, caustic nurses, legal calls
floating in pool with a body that can’t walk on land.
And I hadn’t really been able to put a face on P.T.S.D
until recently. You see, it greets me
every single day, and I choose
to let it be a reminder rather than a warden.
Reminding me that we never know what’s behind a face
a person puts on so they can simply
put one foot in front of the other.
No relief likely
yet we try all the same
to transcend, defend,
pretend, and ascend.
Once born, we are here
in a world
where it comes only
in the form of a
flickering smile
here and there,
a minute to ourselves
now and then,
a moment free from pain.
And we see this
we know this but still
like overgrown infants
we cry, we wail, we rail
for the ever alluding relief.
Three teens sit smoking outside
none of them looking old enough
to have purchased their
addiction of choice on their own
and I wonder how they arrived
at the decision to do this the first time
when most adults I know are trying to quit
we all have these things
these rights of passage that we assume
hasten our maturity, instantly granting us
a certificate of adulthood we’re so eager to earn
Strange how the things we seek
morph into the monkeys clawing at our backs
and we never have enough bananas
and those suckers just keep multiplying…
I woke early to explore the City of Angels
finding an opportunity, one moment
to bring serenity, to show someone
I saw them amongst the shambles
on the steps of a church
and we only talked for an hour
over coffee about her life, her loss
the pain she felt she had caused
that had led her to become
this sad fixture, easily ignored, categorized
pigeon holed to ease minds
all I had to offer was a prayer
she accepted it gladly as we held hands
I prayed she would know peace
among other things that seemed trite
as I left her, I wondered just how many
angels have fallen and how they will ever fly again
sucm 