Perfect.

It's everything, really.
It's all the things that were,
And all that could have been.
Everything I was
and all the things I'll never be.
It's a world of possibility that's closing in on me
And my struggle to cross gracefully
A raging red giant
Flinging the vestiges of my violent youth out
Into space,
Into nothingness.

It's memories only half remembered
Moments I'll never have again.
The things we expected that
Never came to be.
Or things we never dreamed,
Somehow now held close.
It's the distance.
Or, the suffocating closeness.
It's the terrible idea that maybe,
Just maybe I can accept and transform
All of the guilt and loneliness and regret into the feeling that
For once,
And all,
I am enough.
I do enough.
I see and hear and give and love enough.
That there is no better to be had here,
And that the things I have right here,
Right in front of me,
That even I myself -
Am perfect.
Enough.
Whole.
All.
Both.

Enough.

High Tide.

I watched the sand get swept away
This morning
With Winter breathing heavy down my neck.
She heaves her chest in great sighs of frustration
Blows at the beaches
Chasing Summer's last errant children off.

If I listened, just a little
If I paid more than passing attention
I might hear her whispering anger and
She might sweep me off my feet, too.
I turn my back, keep walking East before
Winter brings the waves that crash,
And call me home.

Would.

Silken thread weaves through my fingers
Brushes their tips,
Draws over my palm.
I breathe small ripples into the water,

Fascinated.

Rapt.

I sit stone-still and watch the crimson wine bloom up
Breathing it's own life out slowly
Soft and warm.
Soft.
Like the rare shade of sunlight you can only see through flower petals.
It glitters, and then is gone.

I'm left here with a stinging sense of loneliness,
My only comfort stolen
Beautiful in it's betrayal.
If I could open my chest
Spill my soul out on the ground
And dance my bare feet in its greying faith,
In God's laughter,
Splashing dreams and gravity everywhere...

I would.

Oh, how I would.

Fuck your chart.

How.
Dare.
You.
How dare you come here with your pile of paperwork,
While I'm caring for my many patients
While I'm doing my Work.
God's work, as my father once called it.
How dare you come and ask me to explain myself.
"Where's the chart?"
I didn't tear it apart.
"Where's the chart?"
I gave report, she would have been responsible for it.
"Where's the chart?
Where, you ask, where is the chart?
I don't know what you are looking for,
What piece of paper, but I know that
I gave that woman the finest care.
I made her feel loved, in a moment of deepest sorrow.
I was her shepherd through the world's deepest pain:
The grief of a mother for her young son.
I held her toddler daughter so she could cry openly.
I held this stranger on my shoulder and wept with her
I heard her pride in naming him herself.
I listened carefully for his heartbeat time and time again until,
When it finally stopped and I knew he wouldn't feel any more pain
I gently cast his footprints in plaster,
The only proof she would ever have that he was hers
And hers alone.
The only thing in her world that she might call her own.
And so, no.
I didn't write much down.
I didn't chart vital signs so meager.
I didn't cross my t's or dot my i's.
But I was a damn fine nurse, that day.
So put a fucking price on that.
After all, what is the code for "sorrow"?
For "lonely"?
How much should grief cost?
And, had I spent more time charting
and less time caring...
Would it pay more?
I am no man's whore,
No rule-following automaton
I am a nurse.
A lady with a lamp, lighting a way through the dark and confusing
Web of the human response to disease.
The *human* response.

So fuck you.
Fuck you and your chart.  You're lucky I filled out as much as I did.
No, I can't remember what happened to that piece of paper a month ago.
But I will always remember that baby's name.
And the day that I made a real difference in someone's life and someone's death.

What will you remember?

Metal III

Seatbelts buckled, safety bars locked. 

The brakes are loose and we're on our way up the first hill of this 

Rollercoaster.

Soon we'll let fly and 

Hang on tight

And scream and laugh all the way down

To some end we cannot see, but 

We know we'll be together.

We know we'll be safe.

Loved.

Warm.

And happy.

Really, really happy.

Metal II

Sold, then.  Stripped of meaning, of purpose

Of real value...

Lovely gifts, once, 

Now pave the way for a new adventure

I was unsure, a little bitter and a lot guilty,

As if I owed something somehow.

But I suppose there are some debts paid

And some that can never be forgiven

Which is where I think we'll always be:

Paid in full, but never quite forgotten.

My own burden to bear until I choose to lay it down.

'Cause ain't nothin' you ever gonna say

's ever gonna make me forgive myself.

For all I did and had to do

To be free of all that held me down.  

Metal I

Sold.
Old gold, left here to
Rot it's holes in my
Skin so thin, so
Rough.
These little peaches, they're wonderfully sweet but I just can't eat them.
Peeling the skin off, I find a translucent bruised part that reminds me
Winged memory brushes just too close
A glancing blow, at most
But still.
Hollow, naked and purpling eyes stare back from my own
Eyelids and I
Open them to break the contest.

Strawberries.

I stand in my father's garden
Knee-deep in carrots and tomato plants.
Garish rhubarb sneaks a playful swipe at my shin.
I wade through the tall grass and pinch my favorite leaf
Of lemon balm by the door.
I breathe in the quiet musty earth of my childhood.
"Was I a good parent?" he had asked, words that echo here in my ears as I part the leaves of a strawberry plant to hunt for forgotten fruit.
"Am I a good person?" my reply mixes in between the lines.
I remember weekends building
Summers spent and earned in learning
Evenings I felt loved.
Our house was always warm and full of laughter
I learned the things a father ought to teach his daughter:
How to change a tire, build stairs, dance the moonwalk.
How to help a stranger.
How to do your best.
Memories condense on the maple leaves next to me here,
As I find a tiny tart berry that the slugs have spared.
It tastes like home.

Stick it.

Stick the landing.

Get through this.

Whiskey face, this old place

Blood sweat tears

Do it again.

We fight we scream

We cry and breathe we dream and hope.

Tell me, my friend,

Why oh why how can we stay?

When it's so very hard to walk away.

Where oh where, when

Will it end

What ever will we say,

Stand our ground.

Or let it all fall down

Just hold your head up either way

Hold your head up either way.

Going.

What is any of it for, anyway?
For happiness?  For love?  For service or for research or meaning or pleasure?
The real meaning of my Saturn Return closes in and chokes me here,
This, more than ever before, is my chance to decide -
Sex or Death?
Generativity or stagnation - can I make my life count for something?
Has it already?


Down down, baby.
Down by the rollercoaster.
Sweet, sweet baby -
This, oh this.
Door opening, opportunity staring me in the face
What happened to my sense of adventure, my
Bright-eyed wonder, wander-lust?
Danger and fear, come one come all!
Why am I so very afraid of this
Very very giant leap?
To trust you, to take your hand
Make good on my promise, put my money where my mouth is
To start a whole new life together
Seems so very overwhelming sometimes.
It's going to be fun, right?
It's fun if you make it,
Everything is what you make it
Spinning my wheels here, it's definitely time
But oh, to find the courage
The resolve
The faith...

I never ask "what if we fail?"
I know we'll succeed, we'll find our way and be spectacularly happy.
It's just...
Whatever will we do with everything we've left behind?
However will I let go, leave all these flowers to wilt or bloom as they will?
How will I ever say "goodbye"?

Breadcrumbs.

Ebb and flow,
This week's lesson is about finding comfort in my own tides
Recognizing the pattern better so I don't get caught up in
Fighting every wave.
So glad I have a mirror to hold,
Hands to grasp and a warm place to curl up in
When I need a quiet place to spill my head.

I keep waiting for that shy knock on the door,
An orange flash around a corner
Stunned and squinting in the twilight
So much to say, and yet
So little.
All debts forgiven, all penance done:
With love and kindness I can say that we were right
And we were so wrong.
A heavy summer's weight gone by
Bitterness swept up in the sweet sunset
I'm grateful, so thankful for the things I learned
That brought me to a calmer place
Strong and bright, here.

So if there were questions to ask,
Answers to give
Or some talk about the weather,
Know that the only thing I would really ever have to say
Is thank you.
I've found my way home.

Water.

Too many.
Reach out too far too fast and
Lose my balance, every time.
Craving some connection,
Some proof there was ever something there
Worth connecting to, or for.
To and fro, then I worry and fret
Maybe this is the lesson for the day
That sometimes it's ok to just let this one slide,
Let go my clutching fingers and just watch the
Water go by.

Eclipse.

One night in the dust,
I knelt and took in the view
Drawn and fascinated by a million twinkling lights
I held them tight, that they might shed some
On me.
The moon and I, we danced and sang
Took shelter in her shadow
And when the sun came out again I saw
Everything, it will be alright.
It really will all be ok.
Left here with a sense of holiness
Perfection, like you said -
You are the most insignificant speck which makes you
The most important.

I had a dream I knew I was dreaming,
About an old house that I could smell
Heavily varnished wood and that grey smell that
Only old old houses have.
About being on the beach and watching the waves rise through
The reeds.
Feeling the sand under my feet.
In dreamland, I can make it rain.
I can whip the clouds into a frothing frenzy
I shared a smile and a friend's hug
And walked on down the shore.

Only I remain.

I shall not fear.
Walls shaken a little,
Given opportunity to reflect on where I am
Where I'm going
Where I have gone
I hear your concern for
The things I'm supposed to do
That I haven't completed my process
Left some things undone
Some wound unhealed.
It's true, what they say
That this work is never, ever done
It's all a journey forth
First, to thine own self be true
For the first time, I am.
That's the thing, isn't it? The strength to stand
On my own two feet inside these arms?
Love first for myself?
"Do you love yourself?"
So long alone, the answer was no.
But I shall not and I do not fear.
Only love remains.
So if you have advice, judgement or else for me
See me as I am now:
Happy, healthy, living my truth and my bliss
Loved and in love.
Bright and hopeful for myself and for the world.
And most of all,
Proud to be me.

Can you say the same? And if not, can you then judge the path I've taken?

You and I.

Maintain a balanced outlook.
Keep sight of the things that matter.
Do you have what it takes?
The answers?
The formula?
I've found it, guys.
I've got it right here, and if not now,
Then when?
How many weeks?
Days or years
I have all the things that matter, here.
Is there any one factor,
Any one that makes it right
More than that feeling in my chest
That heaviness
That doesn't want to run and hide
That opens
That wants to be the truth
And see it grow.

This is it.
I knew before and I knew now to have faith
In the opportunity presenting itself
I have faith in the universe telling me that this.
Here.
Now.
Doesn't get any better.
I can wait around all I want but I won't find it.
Won't catch it.
All the external validation in the world
All the analysis
The discussion
Won't change that spark
That glow and sweet sweet burn
Love at first sight that I'll never
Leave
That if everything that happened, everything from the moment of realization
That night in Phoenix
One argument, one failure, one
Heartbreak after another,
The moment of impact.
If it was all worth it,
To make me into who I am now
To bring me to this point,
That if it was all worth it then I'll say yes.
Yes here,
Yes today.
That everything I've been through in the last year,
The last 2 years.
The last 29 years
Has made me into the woman I am.
The perfection you love.
The one thing I can choose over every
Thing.
Else...
Every.
Time...
Then, Yes,
Yes I'll say Yes,
Yes here and now, for no other reason than we can't find one not to.
Than for no other reason than this.
Than that we've fallen for each other
And we want the world to know that we are so and

You and I.

Never, ever

Won't be.

Twenty-Five, still.

Talking, living loving.
Brightening red neon sparkles by my ear,
Bug buzzing through my head -
Reminding me.
Always your reminder,
Oh yeah.
Here we go again.
Again and again.
Another 4 months of
Uncertainty, of no energy
Uncertainty, no energy.
No faith, dim reality
Like the light
Just turned off.
Like love
Flies out the door.
Tragedy, insanity, lost youth and infamy.
I'd be famous if it wasn't for January.
Or was it December, the year before?
Red light street screaming in my ears, whining
For attention, affection,
Go away.
Go Away
Here it comes, that endless ache and all too familiar smell
And bottomless bottomless need.
I go alone in a crowd, unsure and unsung
Petulant, untrusting.
I find a halting rhythm but it stops.
It always stops.
The price to pay for burning too bright.
Ten years of winter, I'm still here in terror.
My bravery faltering, my confidence crumbling with the frost.
Poor little pumpkin, will you survive, this time?
I shiver with the leaves, my colors changing too.

Or not.

I've had enough.
I've thought it through, this way and that
And decided it's enough.
That you don't need my pity
My help
My extended hand, no
That anything you ever gave was less out of love
And more self-interest.
The opportunity to forever have a one-up
A hold-over
And because it might further endear you
But not for selflessness
And no, not for love.
And so maybe you're right,
Maybe it is for me, and for everyone
To leave well enough alone,
Let you to yours and I to mine
I give.
I give up.
So I'll be here if you ever need.

Or not.

With me.

Things keep bouncing back
Keep coming up
Things I thought I had forgotten
Thought I had closed the door on
Buried that hatchet
And the last of the horse-bones
With it.
Keeps cropping up.
Head rearing, wing-flapping
Dragons with their claws and teeth
That baby with her cold eyes
The smell of injustice
A maggot or two.
The moments that counted
When I was helpless to do anything but stand quietly by.
When there was no doing in the world,
No saying, no paying, no going or coming
No killing that could save.
It's those moments I die still in every day.
That I could take your place,
Your pain,
Your rabid desperation
Oh god, that anything I could do would help
But I am dwarfed, made mute and impotent by my fear
My naïveté.
My shocking weakness.

I know it isn't my fault, and little anyone could do
But still I didn't measure up
And it's my own disappointment that haunts me
That finds its way into my skin
Only to be cut out again.
Oh god, poor me.
Misguided martyr,
Tortured soul can I ever let go the idea that
Any of it.
Anything at all.
Has anything.

To do.

With me.

Strength and magic.

I've started dreaming again.
I dream of water that tries to drag me under,
Of a new house where mine once stood,
Of change, overwhelming change in the ground and the sky.
I dream that the people I love are all working through mud,
Wiping it like tears from their eyes.
I get lost in the details and keep forgetting where I'm going
And why it was so important that I go there in the first place.
I always have something pressing to do,
But there's always something in my way.
I wake, surprised to find there's light in my room here
An hour earlier than I did yesterday.
I've started dreaming again,
And writing-
Drawing charcoal shapes on the walls that close me in.
There are doors and windows everywhere that never work
Outlined in black, as if all I need is the magic to make them real.
But it's really only the strength I lack to fling them open wide.

Scraping.

I scrape.
I turn it over.
I scrape some more.
I find another angle of light.
I realize I'm sitting sideways in my chair again.
Legs crossed, shoulders hunched.
I scrape.
I switch, from a plastic spoon to a toothbrush,
Improvised tools for something resembling an artist.
I worry the edges more.
Carve a little more off the left.
It's still all wrong, but better than starting over,
I remember to relax my shoulders again.
I deepen the spaces between the fingers,
Hollow out the arch of the foot a little more.
I look up and realize another hour has gone by,
I know I have other things to do,
Something else to think about, but I
Just want to finish this.
This one thing.
A small thing, just hands and feet in plaster
A crooked heart shape and some pastel acrylic paint
I can glue a flower over the part that broke off,
I was never any good at arts and crafts.
I scrape.
My mind is thankfully consumed with this task
Not with the antibiotic I should be giving,
Not with the charting I should be doing,
But with scraping.
Rubbing away chunks of plaster to
Just.
Make.
It.
Right.
This, a small thing but so important,
Maybe the only evidence this woman will ever have that she was a mother.
That her baby, her pregnancy ever existed and ever meant anything
To anyone but her.
If this is all she will have left,
Of hope, of love,
Of the precious little girl she always wanted.
I want it to be perfect.
Or at least not quite so very wrong.
I scrape.
I keep chewing down the edges, this way and that and
Another hour has gone by before I realize
This isn't as much for her as it is for me.
As I can't bear to feel helpless
I need something, anything will do.
As if I could hold this ridiculous tiny tchotchke up
Against her litany of tragedies
As if pink-painted hands and feet could somehow soothe a
Broken, broken soul.
I scrape furiously
As if it would make a difference.

I spray a gloss over my artwork
(how appropriate.)
A child's work at best,
I lettered a lost name and date on the back,
Thinking as I did that maybe
Maybe she would see how much time and love I spent
Scraping.
And think for an instant that someone cared enough
To see that she had something nice
If it could be called nice
In a terrible storm of a world.
That it wouldn't be patronizing or pitiful
But somehow help a little

As we both move on.

Here.
Here is a woman in need.
Missing more than a few teeth, covered in scratches and insect bites.
Afraid and alone.
Appears older than stated age.
Appears 45.
I guess her age at 38.
I find out she's 30.
A year and a half older than I.
Here, a reminder of how different my life could be.
Here is a woman.
"Positive for meth"
"Lives in a motel," comes the report.
Needs love.
Needs hope.
Shooed away from other safe places that are made immune to basic charity by their haughty ethics and sterile policies.
I am glad she is here.
We won't test her for drugs, or whisper down our noses.
We won't hide our judgement between her vital signs.
She said "I was taking better care of myself. I was eating every day."
Every. Day.
I want to take better care of her than any private patient. I want to give her a shower and warm blankets and a quiet place to do the secret and sacred things that women do.
A dignified place to say goodbye.
I want to care for her in this moment. I want her to know a little love in a hard, hard world.
I know I can't change her. I know her days are filled with drugs and suffering and men who would take anything they can from her.
I know she isn't likely to find a way up.
But I can give her comfort and dignity.
I can give her the finest nursing care while she loses her baby.

Here is a woman in need,
Deserving of love.