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.

Amazing

Sitting in ever a home as I ever had
With ever a love as I ever knew.
Smiling heart wide as ever could
Living bright as heaven can.
I know the things that people know
Once they've grown,
Once they're old.
I know your heart and you know mine
We'll keep eachother safe through time.

Comfort and joy, light and love.
A thousand thoughts a thousand miles an hour
Grief and not a little sorrow fly hand in hand with wonder
With grace
With gratitude.
Truly smiling
Eyes singing and arms high
I could fly tonight.
I have cried and I will do more
But I'm lifted up and carried home
By the hand that heals me
That comforts me
That brings me out of darkness
'I was lost and now am found.
Was blind, but now I see.'