Castaway
I owe you guys a post about the holidays, but I have something else to share first. I haven't tapped into my creative side in months, and I decided this week to try to rectify that. It's pretty crappy (as far as I can tell), but it's still something, which is better than nothing. I could continue editing it to death, but in the past I've gotten some of my best feedback when I left things raw. So I'm posting this poem-ish thing as is, and hopefully it resonates with at least one of you. It's kind of dark, but that's because the holidays stirred up a lot of grief & anxiety for me. Ironically I'm feeling better today, but maybe that's because I expressed myself here. Yay for angst? Heh.
---
It comes over me like a wave,
this way & that,
and for a strangled moment
all is madness.
All is chaos
and confusion.
Frantic thoughts
flitting around my head --
no rest for the weary.
Adrift
in the middle of a violent sea,
and the shore is nowhere
to be found.
The fearful truth
plainly presents itself:
I'm lost,
and no one is coming to find me.
More to the point,
she is not coming to find me.
She went away;
she always did,
but this time
she's not coming back.
I keep calling out to the naked void,
Where are you now?
Where did you go?
The cry echoes in all directions,
round & round,
down I go.
Voices rush to reassure me,
"You don't have to do this alone."
But at night
there is no one to hold me.
No arms around me.
My bed is sinking dread.
I feel it in my chest --
a sharp, panicked loneliness
that reaches all the way down
into my very soul;
a sickening suspicion
performing acrobatic acts
within my aching gut,
predicting a thousand what-ifs?
coming true at last,
churning & turning
again & again.
One foot in front of the other,
one second at a time,
both eyes focused
on the next right thing.
(Where, oh where is the horizon?)
Where I am going,
there is no map.
The road is an uphill battle.
Tingling chills sliding up & down my spine --
my breath is shallow,
my eyes black
and bright.
A dark tunnel
with one single pinpoint
of light.
I can do this.
I can do
what you never could.
I know it.
But my heart remains hollow.
My mother,
my first & only home --
she left behind nothing
but charred remains, scorched earth,
and bittersweet dreams
blossoming
inside the hidden cracks and shadows.
The walls that kept us apart.
Ashes running past my fingertips,
gone too soon.
Once more,
I wake up gasping.
Fight, flight, or freeze;
there is no there
there.
Not anymore.
It is almost
like you never even were.
Months & years pass with no mention of you
from any of the many mouths
that used to revel in your despair.
But I remember everything.
I remember it all,
and I howl my truth at the moon
and stars.
I tell it,
we were here.
I swear it.
Once upon a time,
that was enough.
But everything changes,
the universe insists
on reminding me.
I know.
I resent the dawn,
the birth of a new day
without you.
I can't help myself.
I am still learning
to love the hesitating breath.
To embrace the changing lines
upon my face.
Scars run from here to there,
documenting what was.
What is.
What no longer shall be.
Still.
Our love
can never
be erased.
Fin
---
---
It comes over me like a wave,
this way & that,
and for a strangled moment
all is madness.
All is chaos
and confusion.
Frantic thoughts
flitting around my head --
no rest for the weary.
Adrift
in the middle of a violent sea,
and the shore is nowhere
to be found.
The fearful truth
plainly presents itself:
I'm lost,
and no one is coming to find me.
More to the point,
she is not coming to find me.
She went away;
she always did,
but this time
she's not coming back.
I keep calling out to the naked void,
Where are you now?
Where did you go?
The cry echoes in all directions,
round & round,
down I go.
Voices rush to reassure me,
"You don't have to do this alone."
But at night
there is no one to hold me.
No arms around me.
My bed is sinking dread.
I feel it in my chest --
a sharp, panicked loneliness
that reaches all the way down
into my very soul;
a sickening suspicion
performing acrobatic acts
within my aching gut,
predicting a thousand what-ifs?
coming true at last,
churning & turning
again & again.
One foot in front of the other,
one second at a time,
both eyes focused
on the next right thing.
(Where, oh where is the horizon?)
Where I am going,
there is no map.
The road is an uphill battle.
Tingling chills sliding up & down my spine --
my breath is shallow,
my eyes black
and bright.
A dark tunnel
with one single pinpoint
of light.
I can do this.
I can do
what you never could.
I know it.
But my heart remains hollow.
My mother,
my first & only home --
she left behind nothing
but charred remains, scorched earth,
and bittersweet dreams
blossoming
inside the hidden cracks and shadows.
The walls that kept us apart.
Ashes running past my fingertips,
gone too soon.
Once more,
I wake up gasping.
Fight, flight, or freeze;
there is no there
there.
Not anymore.
It is almost
like you never even were.
Months & years pass with no mention of you
from any of the many mouths
that used to revel in your despair.
But I remember everything.
I remember it all,
and I howl my truth at the moon
and stars.
I tell it,
we were here.
I swear it.
Once upon a time,
that was enough.
But everything changes,
the universe insists
on reminding me.
I know.
I resent the dawn,
the birth of a new day
without you.
I can't help myself.
I am still learning
to love the hesitating breath.
To embrace the changing lines
upon my face.
Scars run from here to there,
documenting what was.
What is.
What no longer shall be.
Still.
Our love
can never
be erased.
Fin
---