Gone so fast.

"Hello my honey, hello my darling, hello my ragtime gal..."

Sand squeaks between my toes, slides through my fingers

I rush to cup each falling handful

Turning one palm toward the other, trying hard to catch each shining grain

I want to capture it, hold it up to the sun and see its glittering colors

Before the next one fades away.

Each sparkling snowflake sliver,

Each a tiny delighting world in itself.

I turn it over, drawn in by the detail carved here and there,

By the little dancing lights, by the shifting silver planes.

I cannot help but stand transfixed, here a moment.

Then something out of the corner of my eye moves and in a rush my eyes widen again.

I look back at my other hand, upturned in my surprise and focus

To find I've lost all the rest.

Just breathe.

"Every word..."

No long term plans, I might still be waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Still waiting for it to all fall down.

A little like a caged little animal

More like a lonely bird on her perch,

Singing for my lunch, for your enjoyment, because I should.

I only regret being so far away

It's hard to juggle all this, wish I could tell you all of it

About the little grins and sparkling eyes

The small things that make it perfect, but that cause such aches and pains

I'll save it for later.

I feel disconnected, upside-down in my swing.

I have these too-short or too-long encounters that still always leave me a little hungry.

Need to put on a bow and a smile, now.

All the better to eat you with, my dear.

It's all worth it, I'm sure.

I still have this little thing that tugs, that says "This is the last time."

I wish I could have some reassurance that it isn't. You can't live life grieving a little for every little thing.

Poor little creature, take a deep breath and just live now.

Just live for now.

Patience.

We'll survive this

Another bump in the road, path less traveled

Less care-worn

I'm stronger than this and so are you.

I keep busy, so do you and while it keeps us interesting,

Can we keep interested?

World turning upside-down

We'll work through this.

Do what it takes, because this is worth doing

You're worth taking

A spin around the block,

I read recently "this is the sound of inevitability"

You could say is this the beginning

but you couldn't of the end.

Is this the sound of doors opening or closing? What would I trade?

I wouldn't trade you. I want it all, but it's all nothing without you

Without your careful context, it all crumbles.

We'll stick together, this is the sound of reaching hands

Beating hearts, still in time.

One step at a time, my dear, one stop and we'll find the journey's silver lining.

Today's lesson is about patience with the process.

Patience with your irrational self.

And blind faith and the meaning behind it all.

Let's dance?

Step one-two-three

"Anything but that"

It's a tangled web, we dance, my dear

A fine line between love and luck

Grins and grimaces

Fears, failings, insecurities and indiscretions.

Hello, frontal disinhibition

Hello, Alice with your white frills and dainty lace

Hello, high-flying trapeze

I flew once, flew high and long, stretched out over the net

Had the courage to let go before, and see what caught me

Can I do it again?

You can't always count on the line

Sometimes, there aren't enough toes to go around,

Sometimes you have to keep counting.

Step-two-three, just close your eyes and let go,

Hear the air whoosh by your ears just long enough to pass the time while your heart skips a beat-four-five.

When you open your eyes, there'll be a surprise, who know where you'll end up-six-seven-eight.

Measure your life in love, it's all that's ever left.

Sometimes, I wonder if I'm drowning in it.

Silly rabbit, pull out another trick, show me what's up your sleeve, or in your pocket?

Tell me another story, weave me another dream. Goodnight, rabbit.

Goodnight.

It's all so frustrating.

We lie, a little.

I saw it today, a twisted lie.

"Is everything ok?"

The answer should have been:

"No, your baby's heart rate is less than half that of normal right now, and there is evidence that shows that a heart rate below 60 is not sufficient for brain perfusion and if this goes on much longer, your baby may suffer long term effects. Now, please turn onto your other side."

Instead, she got:

"Yes, everything's just fine. Let's roll you over."

To a point, there isn't a point to scaring the poor woman when we see this quite frequently (thanks to pitocin augmentation and continuous fetal monitoring) and it generally goes away quickly, and why raise her anxiety level when that might even contribute to further stress on her fetus? She doesn't know enough and it would take too long to explain and does she really want to know anyway? Is she looking for a real answer, or just some reassurance?

What's the point?

I still feel like she ought to be told the truth. I feel funny about her being lied to, even though we simply don't have time to give her contextually complete information.

It did pass, and everything was fine, in the end. She had a happy, healthy baby with good Apgar scores.

Which means the kid has a good start, despite the challenges his 17 year old mother will face.

And, by the way, I am in charge of 5 labor nurses who are sitting here twiddling their thumbs. Would LocalEMS please bring us a 32-week abrupting crackmomma? I'm just putting it out there. I'd like something to do, please.

Birth plan.

I totally support the making of a birth plan. Researching, discussing and writing out your wishes regarding your birth experience is empowering and helps to ensure that you get the best experience you can. However, if you're going to post your birth plan on the door of your room for all the labor nurses to read, and you're going to do the research enough to refuse a specific drug (that actually has excellent evidence that supports its routine use) please research enough that you don't get the name of the drug entirely wrong.

That is all.

One jump.

"One step/ahead of the bread line.."
"One jump..."
Leap of faith, taken small steps at a time.
Can I swallow this red pill
One makes you taller, one makes you
More aware of your boundaries, bound lies, bounding bonding leaping longing
They're small, can I have two, thanks?
Keep it fair, keep it together, keep it all wound up
Chasing my tail down another twisting rabbit hole
Butterflies and bunnies, all the way
Rewriting the story, changing the script as we muddle through
Another muggle-bucking dilemma.
I know it isn't this easy, but nothing's ever simple nor easy and
If for no other reason than to do one thing every day that frightens me
I continue.
If for no other reason than to occupy every single second of my short run here with something
very, very interesting.
I'm very, very interested.
I'm so much smarter and more interesting on paper than I am in real life.
It's really that I test well. That and the DLN have gotten me just about everything,
I am charming, I am cute, I am Jack's unending curiosity and zest for life.
Thank you, sir, may I have another?

Reset.

Gave in, again.

Just couldn't hold out any longer.

Bowing down, breaking down, time to start the clock over again.

Still there, thanks for the reminder.

Still a little sick, still a little down, build my house again one stick at a time.

Huff and puff one-two-three

It breaks so easy, so fast and I'm back in that space again.

Outer fucking space,

Keep my composure, keep my head up, keep trying.

Someday I'll win this game.

One day, one battle at a time, "no-one knows what a struggle it's been lately"

One breath at a time, I keep moving.

Maybe today, I'll even dance.

All Wrong.

Hold on, maybe you've got it wrong,
Baby maybe you've got it all wrong
Got me wrong, done me wrong
Pulling me six ways from Sunday,
Never think, never do, never sting again
Guilt and shame and open eyes, wide and shut and rolling
Maybe you've never called me baby, I've chased you long and hard
Far and wide, up and down
Can you save me, temptress?
Can you save my soul, before it's too far gone, before
Nothing can be done.
If you win, have I really lost? Am I really too far gone?

Sing to me.
Tell me a sweet story about a boy and a girl and how he left
Her bleeding, broken and hardly whole
Sing me to sweet sleep, steel violin
Stealing me, stealing what wasn't ever really mine
Who can claim what's thrown away?
One man's trash, another's tarnished treasure?
Kept in a dusty box, shown off as a Sultan's jewel or a pickled punk.
There's a bitter taste in my mouth, why so sour?
You've got the solution, the fix, my medicine.
But you've got me wrong, I'm bigger than that.
Little beggar, but I'm better than that.
Bittersweet ending, play my heart's strings all you want, but I'm not
Yours.
I'm not.
You've got me wrong.

K&M

Still breathing.
Both tubed with a million snaking plastic snakes that invade every secret corner.
Every drop of in and out, every breath measured
As if to weigh your soul.
"Lighten up."
I wonder if your heart was light. I wonder why you waited so long.
And punishments like this make me wonder why you still believe.
There's a small card on the wall by one's bed, signed by a loving nurse in her daughter's name.
And miles of sterile hallway away, there's a paper with the other's name, colored by another loving nurse instead of her mother's hand.
They're poor, poor substitutes for what should be.
One flash, one wavering sleepy instant changes a family's hopes and dreams forever.
I wonder if you'll ever wake up, either one.
I want so badly for him to have one. If he can't have one, have the other, to not to have to say goodbye to both would be Mercy.

But if there's to be neither, can they go together? I play a scene in my mind, a hushed room, still of all the beeps and lights - with a small family together for the last time. Two souls, making the greatest transition together - a tiny, only daughter who was too small to fight hard enough, and her mother whose obstacles were just too great... And a man about to lose everything he ever truly loved and dreamed and hoped for. I want for them to go together, if they both have to go.

It's the living I am sorry for. It's those who have to get out of bed and go to work and trowel on a smile in the morning, whose every day forward will be measured by this one. She's a mother, now, but will never know it. But you'll always remember that you are a father to a perfect little soul.

If you had to choose, which would you? Whose injuries are fewest? Whose crimes are worst? Whose dreams were worth most? Innocence? Who knew you best? Who can say who you loved most - your daughter, or your wife?

Wake up, you must cry. Just wake up. Oh, please, God - wake up. What would you give for one day? One word? One smile?

They're still breathing, for now. Used to be one was breathing for the other, but I fixed that, didn't I. I'm bitter, still. I wonder if I should have left well enough alone, if you'd have more peace never knowing. There's still a glimmer of hope, one star, one single piece of square glitter that might give you that smile, someday.
But probably not. I hope you can find the strength, someday, to say the words that will vanish that hope and allow you to find your own way, again.

K&M, I am sorry you never knew eachother.
I hope you find one another again.

Cured?

Two weeks stone cold turkey.
Visions of sugarplums blur in my head,
There's a little more of me to go around, and while I've gone
Round and round, I'm still better off.
I'll still take 5 pounds over multitudes of milligrams.
Little centipedes, millipedes wend their way over the wrinkles in my skull,
winding between and through the fingers that spread over my parietal lobes,
Frontal disinhibition's joyful grin flashes out through the thinning mist.
I can have both.
I can think and create, I can write and do - so long been mutually exclusive.
I can exclude a few things. I know it's not forever, but it's nice to know that it can be done.
I can go without. Be without, live without and love within still.
It's nice to know that I haven't changed much but the season, and so I can still simply hold a chemical accountable.
Table. Treble warbling song reaches skyward. It's nice to feel so good,
Nice to be not so crazy.
Maybe I'm growing out of this phase - I know better than to think my future's all sunshine and rainbows, but it's a small triumph over genetics and old lessons to say "all clear".
All good.
I forget, though, that I no longer have that lame excuse. Now I'm really just selfish for not checking off the next box, the next logical step.
I'm okay with selfish. I'm okay with the status quo.
5 pounds are a much lighter-weight burden to carry.

Brighter days.

Soaring.
Blind flying sky-high.
I'll be here and there and everywhere soon.
My dreams handed to me one-by-one.
Exhiliration exhalation explanation "do you want the short one or the long..."
It's a long way home, so long, but there's such a force here.
A force of magnetism that draws me in and up.
Upward, outward.
I'm flying to fly, soon.
The calls and emails come faster, the Law of Attraction works,
Again and again.
Thanks, so many thanks to whatever little angel, whichever of the lovely
Fates has hung so many little baubles and bright jewels on my thread.
Whoever braided it so smoothly.
I can leave the window open, and the sweet breeze blows me in the right direction.
My sail's unfurled, spinnaker-wide.
Bright colors call to the birds aflight and sun rays and waves' spray
"You're welcome," they whisper.

I am eating the last of the leftover lettuce.
Radish metaphors for our adventures, so seldom anymore.
Doubt creeps into my mind, every time.
Every time you drive off into the sunset, I say goodbye for the last time.
I steel myself a little for the possibility that this is the inevitable.
I have carried this suspicion for so long, it's silly.
I suspect I won't have any warning. Maybe it's more of a hope...
For years, I have held my breath a little every time I pick up your call, every "Open" click.
I wonder where I learned that little fear, maybe a long time ago? Something I never left behind?
Hope, then.
A little hope that you won't go the way of the Dodo, drooling and grinning at your own sad, punchlineless joke.
I don't want you to slow down. I don't want you to lie down to sleep and I see it a little, here and there.
I see your grand conflagration gradually extinquishing itself. Like a forest fire that finally runs out of fuel.
Part of me wishes it were true, that I could preserve you in my memory now, rather than waiting a lifetime for your dreams to slowly disappear.
That would be the greatest tragedy for you, to disappear.

But, you have many more stories to tell, I think. Many more bright suns in your eyes.
You have to finish your own tale, anyway. As much as I fuss and quietly fret, and I know the ending, yes, but I don't know how we get there. Many chapters are still to be written.
Yes, many stories still to be told.

Digging in.

Reset.

Starting over again, yet again.

I am surrounded by love and laughter, I am the richest in that which is truly most important in life.

I am still learning, though, always a new lesson.

Today's: there's always more.

More to be done, more to be cleaned, 

Will I ever be clean?  Washed of my sins, cleansed of the clouds in my eyes, the cobwebs in my soul?

There's always more to be said, more to be fought, more to be built and torn away.

It's a process, a long, long process and I am still fighting through.

Another February begins.  

Another long winter takes stock of my sandbagged post.

I've dug in, it's a fine line between enough and too deep.

The February of my discontent, you called it, pretty accurate.

I will pull myself up, hop back in the saddle, and continue the slog through the muck.

It's nice to have the sun shine on my face, but sometimes I am still cold.  The wind still stings.