sutures
my life has grown a perspective all its own. roots deepening in the ground of my formidable days distend and lengthen into some semblance of adulthood i once thought was permanent. not as permanent as the minds retrograde into the memories and kinesthetic upflowings of nostalgia. we walk the gray days remembering blue. we shift the mirror view to the ghosts of backseat eyes looking back at us. and all the while those ticking hands count 40 hours plus every week and we make our beds and we protect our hearts and we compartmentalize our heads and all the while we still make time for love. i say i love you more times than i count a day. to more people than i thought i ever would. and i am honest. my perspective has quite sincerely changed.
one day you are a hypothetical figure, pink and rosy fleshy child, warm and healthy. written down to be an example of what we take for granted. but you aren't hypothetical. you really did swallow your mothers vicodin and never swallowed another mouthful of anything without someone feeding it to you. never spoke another word. never took another step. you aren't hypothetical, lying in your bed, staff changing your diapers at 55 and eye drops every two hours so you can still see. but you are nonetheless my example.
today a friend of mine waits by her phone to find news of her ten year old cousin. assuming she had found bandaids in her mothers purse, while they were actually painkiller patches for coping with cancer. she did not wake up the next morning. she is still unconscious, and when she wakes, she too will be like one of those i care for day to day who have trouble speaking, and eating, and going to the bathroom, and cleaning themselves.
you couldn't know these sentiments i feel day to day. because they are so far beyond myself that not even i could have imagined what lay before me had i not placed myself here. you squirm in your adolescent insecurities. untangling yourself from things that have never been safe but somehow masked themselves as just that. and now you are alone and exposed, and you are quite drastically seeking an escape. i want to tell someone, even if it is just this online journal, that these things matter to me, but they are trivial to me. they have the power to tug at me, but i cannot let them. if you run, my dear, you will run. and i will stay here. caring for these few who i have grown to love.
i cannot see the use in worrying my heart just to hear that you will do nothing differently. you threaten to leave, and you dont leave. i will not worry about you leaving when it is a storm i could stay inside for until it passes. your tumultuous storms are overwhelming if i step into them. and they are pointless for me. for you, they mean a great deal. but for me, they are pointless.
the days will unfold as they ought to.
in the meantime,
i compartmentalize the stress of a sutured heart.
one day you are a hypothetical figure, pink and rosy fleshy child, warm and healthy. written down to be an example of what we take for granted. but you aren't hypothetical. you really did swallow your mothers vicodin and never swallowed another mouthful of anything without someone feeding it to you. never spoke another word. never took another step. you aren't hypothetical, lying in your bed, staff changing your diapers at 55 and eye drops every two hours so you can still see. but you are nonetheless my example.
today a friend of mine waits by her phone to find news of her ten year old cousin. assuming she had found bandaids in her mothers purse, while they were actually painkiller patches for coping with cancer. she did not wake up the next morning. she is still unconscious, and when she wakes, she too will be like one of those i care for day to day who have trouble speaking, and eating, and going to the bathroom, and cleaning themselves.
you couldn't know these sentiments i feel day to day. because they are so far beyond myself that not even i could have imagined what lay before me had i not placed myself here. you squirm in your adolescent insecurities. untangling yourself from things that have never been safe but somehow masked themselves as just that. and now you are alone and exposed, and you are quite drastically seeking an escape. i want to tell someone, even if it is just this online journal, that these things matter to me, but they are trivial to me. they have the power to tug at me, but i cannot let them. if you run, my dear, you will run. and i will stay here. caring for these few who i have grown to love.
i cannot see the use in worrying my heart just to hear that you will do nothing differently. you threaten to leave, and you dont leave. i will not worry about you leaving when it is a storm i could stay inside for until it passes. your tumultuous storms are overwhelming if i step into them. and they are pointless for me. for you, they mean a great deal. but for me, they are pointless.
the days will unfold as they ought to.
in the meantime,
i compartmentalize the stress of a sutured heart.