Author Archives: glasshill

About glasshill

madly off in all directions

the sum total of my wisdom, thus far

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“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”

― Socrates

Your ego will fuck you over, worse than any person or situation ever could
A quiet morning with a good cup of coffee is worth getting up early for
Sunshine is a beautiful gift too often taken for granted
Your feet are really important, take good care of them
Every day that you are alive is a gift, try to remember that
Love is unconditional, liking is another story
Be kind, to everyone, period, really, this is THE thing that will see all of us through our short time on this planet
We live on a planet first, countries later, and lastly homes, try to behave accordingly
Feed people, care for them, not just on holidays, every single day
Smile. Make eye contact when you do it. Do it a lot, everyone will feel better
Show up and do what needs to be done, do more than needs to be done. Do this every day
It’s best if you don’t get everything you want
Keep moving, your body, or mind, your soul at whatever speed is your own, stagnation is death
Carry others when they cannot carry themselves
Do good, not for any reward or recognition, but because that is why we are alive and on this planet
Look around you, the world is full of beauty and of gifts that you are not noticing
Listen to people, turn off your own running monologue and just listen
Dance, whatever dancing is to you. Open your spirit and enjoy yourself
Listen to music you love, everyday, it will feed your soul
Be alone and be quiet.
Everyday work on loving the person you are right now, not the person you want to or wish to be. Love yourself, right now, grow from there
Forgive yourself, forgive everyone else, for your own sanity
No one thinks they are the bad guy, everyone, EVERYONE is doing the best they can
Let yourself love an animal, let yourself love something that will die before you.
Let your heart get broken, over and over again
Stay open and vulnerable, even when it hurts, especially when it hurts, this will open you to the beauty of the world
Fight for those who cannot, lend them your heart, your voice, your strength and your love. One day someone will stand and fight for you
Speak your mind with love
Laugh!! Everyday, many times. Your sense of humour will keep you sane. Never take yourself or your life too seriously to laugh at. Laughter keeps the importance of things in perspective.
Surround yourself with people who love and value you. Stay away from those who do not, they will suck the joy out of your life, don’t give them the opportunity.
Do others the honour of seeing your real self, your scars, your warts, your self loathing and your unspeakable beauty
Love and honour something greater than yourself
The world is not here for your entertainment, you are here to do some good in whatever form you can manage
People will not behave as you like, this has nothing to do with you
What other people think of you is none of your business
Resist absolutes, judgements and black vs white, and good vs bad thinking, it’s lazy and will not serve you
A person’s skin colour, gender, sexual identity, social status has absolutely NOTHING to do with their value as a person
Be mindful of your own biases
Everything begins with your thoughts, your actions, values and character all grow from your thoughts, make them worthwhile
Change happens, always, get used to it
You will change, this is a very good thing, try not to fight it too much
Read. Read. Read. Read everything you can, you are blessed to be able to read and to have so much available to read, do not ever stop reading, it will make you a better person
Be passionate about something, live your life in a way that expresses this passion
You will get hurt, you will suffer in your life, this is not optional. Use it to make yourself kinder, softer, more empathetic so you can be there for the next person who is suffering. Don’t let your hurts make you hard and bitter.
Get out of your comfort zone, regularly, this is where you learn and where you grow
Make mistakes and spend your time learning from from them instead of beating yourself up over them. Mistakes aren’t optional, what you do with them is up to you
Nothing’s good or bad that thinking makes it so, decide how you want to think and then do it
Practice moderation, and then truly enjoy the things you love
What a person says and does says everything about them and has nothing to do with you
Remember always you are precious beyond all measure and loved no matter what.

my life in bullet points and pictures

Menopause + Mercury Retrograde

The Highlights, The Lowlights, The ‘No Lights at the End of the Tunnel’ Lights

Mood Swings: MORE moods, MORE often, ALL the moods in ONE day, ALL the moods in ONE moment, Ten moods for the price of One!, BUY ONE and get 3 Bazillion FREE moods, ‘Happy Roller coaster moods’, ‘Sad Roller coaster moods’, ‘Happy/Sad/Mad Roller coaster moods’, ‘Roller coaster without a seatbelt moods’, ‘Roller coaster without a seatbelt and a broken rail moods’, ‘Completely overworked roller coaster metaphor because you couldn’t come up with anything else, so just sod off will ya’ kind of mood.

Tears: Sad tears, Happy tears, Mad tears, ‘Happy/Sad/Mad at the same time’ tears WITH boogers, ‘Stupid love song comes on the radio’ tears, ‘Drive by that restaurant you had that date in’ tears, ‘Friends being nice to you’ tears, ‘Nobody will ever love me’ tears, ‘Rejection’ tears, ‘Why I am watching this stupid fecking movie’ tears, ‘somebody ate the last slice of pesto pizza’ tears, ‘why didn’t I buy the stupid waterproof mascara’ tears, ‘we were suppose to do that together’ tears, ‘we were suppose to ride the roller coasters together, dammit’ tears.

Communication: Stupid texts, ‘Happy/Sad/Mad’ texts, ‘completely overworked roller coaster mood metaphor’ texts, ‘Foot-In-Mouth’ texts and emails and words coming out of my mouth (around my toes), cell phone glitches, computer glitches, music glitches, ‘omg, ALL the fecking spreadsheets’ glitches.

Appearance: Hair: Lord. In all the wrong places, in “honey, you should really get that waxed’ places, in the ‘feck it, I’m just going going to grow the hair on my legs and wear long pants because no one will ever looks at my legs again’ places. And Very poorly behaved hair in the proper places. Skin: ‘buying ALL the kinds of cream in the Beauty aisle’ skin, skin doing all the wrong things on all the wrong places.

Indignities: People having ‘banal conversations below your waist whilst your (unwaxed) legs dangling in the stirrups’ indignities, ‘little cough now dear’ indignities, ‘this will only hurt for a moment dear’ indignities (also not true), ‘the whole fecking reason for all the indignities evaporating in one phone conversation about too much drama’ indignity.

Food: Doughnuts for breakfast, cereal for dinner, ice cream for dinner, pizza every damn meal because I just feel like it, okay?! Cake, because Cake. Chocolate, dark chocolate, dark chocolate truffles with fancy expensive tastes added stuffed in my mouth three at time, dark chocolate with pizza and ice cream by the fist full while watching television that makes me cry, chocolate on the fecking tissues because apparently I can’t stuff chocolate in my mouth and cry at the same time without making a mess and wasting chocolate.

Allie’s images are brilliant, she manages to convey a wide range of emotions with a few lines and still manages a sense of humour. I’m working on the sense of humour part.

this one’s mine, computer generated

So yeah. It’s been a ride. An overused roller coster metaphoric kind of ride. It will pass. Retrograde will end, I’ll figure out the menopause thing. All of this will pass.

dear me

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Dear me,

Get up.
Place your feet on the floor,
one after the other.
Breath.
Stand. Walk. Wash your face.
Get up.
Rise and Shine.

Get up.
This is not over.
You are not over,
you are only just beginning.
There are no fat ladies singing,
the credits have not rolled
your movie has only just started.
You have words to write.
There are breezes lifting kites, blowing leaves
that need to be noticed;
there are songs
that need to be heard.

Get up.
Drag your pen across paper.
Write (dammit). Write despite of your broken hand,
in spite of the lifeless fingers.
Write (dammit)
with your teeth if you have to.
Get the words out.
Write about fire, stars, water,
Just write (dammit).

Stand.
Defy gravity.
Do not give them your power.
Do not give
One. More. Moment to those
who called your hopes and fears drama that they didn’t have time for.
Do not.
Do not make yourself small for other’s comfort.
Stand. Defy gravity, even as it pulls you to the earth.
Stand. Inhale. Exhale. Shine.
Be yourself,
your messy, dramatic, beautifully flawed, your lovable self.
Just be.

Stand.
You are who you love,
You are not who loves you.
Define yourself.
On a cool night walk to the beach and make a fire
burn the letters. Take
the card you have clung to and
burn it.
Give them to the fire.
Burn them all
Get up. Look up. Walk away.
Look at the stars, borrow as much light as you need.
Listen to the waves.
Walk into the arms of your friends.
Let go. Let go.
Let the rest go.

Shine.
Walk into your garden and
plant a new seed.
Stand. Shine. Watch it grow,
watch it defy gravity.
Pull the weeds.
Burn them. Burn every last weed
(like the card, like the words, let go, let go, let go)
every weed
that would choke your seed, steal its light,
hinder its growth.
The world will tell you to stop,
to dim your light.
Do not.
There are people that need more light.
Make extra.

Shine.
Feast
on chocolate, on love, on every moment of your life.
Breath.
Deeper than you’ve ever dared.
Stand.
Place your feet on the floor,
one after the other.
Walk.
Walk into darkness, into nothing and
trust each step you take.
Save your own life. One breath,
one step, one word, one seed
at a time.

Dear me,
There is no other moment.
There is only right now.
Live.
Right now.
Get up. Stand. Walk. Shine.
Be that which is you, and only you.
You are enough.
You are what you love.
You are.
Start there.
Breath.

well adjusted

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It’s been a challenging week. The details I’ll leave for another time. I can be, very occasionally, a ‘well adjusted and functioning adult’ but more often than not I’m a ‘flying by the seat of my pants making this stuff up as I go along’ kind of person. I have some healthy coping mechanisms, like yoga, art, wonderful friends, and music, and I have some not so healthy coping mechanisms, like not eating, not making the bed, talking to inanimate objects.

Here are my top 10(ish), or maybe 15 coping mechanisms for the last week, in no order what so ever:

took out a live wasp’s nest, with a bat, during the day when they were around, it was a Lieutenant Dan kinda moment
allowed myself to chew off exactly 1 fingernail, my left pinkie, it looks dreadful, I’m only allowed to chew another when my pinkie grows back
curled up on my couch with my daughter, ate pie and ice cream and watched animated movies (The Incredibles and Wreak It Ralph), cried in a somewhat dignified manner
curled up on a friend’s couch and watched movies (Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, Sliding Doors), cried in a rather undignified manner (waterproof mascara that can hold it’s own through a hot yoga class crumbles and runs down your face if you cry long enough, especially the undignified type of crying)
reached out to friends, cried, and laughed and made horribly inappropriate jokes (inappropriate humour being a major coping mechanism)
made art, did not cry on the art (involved quick tissue reflexes)
talked to my steering wheel, cried on my steering wheel, sung to my steering wheel, drummed on my steering wheel; my steering wheel knows all my secrets
talked to my dog, talked to my cat, my fish, my garden, the lizard, but not the snake, the snake doesn’t listen
sang and hummed to myself, a lot, I mean for hours, I think the dog liked it, but it’s so hard to tell with him
didn’t make the bed for 3 whole days, also picked clothes out of the dryer instead of folding and putting them away
did yoga, got sweaty and breathed deeply, felt MUCH better afterwards
various forms of retail therapy – expensive yoga pants that make my ass look fabulous, little balls to roll away the tension in my neck, dark chocolate with cherries, so far….
narrowed my diet to pie (now gone), toast, coffee, and the odd bowl of cereal (lost 5 pounds, I do not recommend this diet)
played sudoko on my phone for extended periods of time (which I justify as a exercise for my brain)
poetry, lots of poetry, because I’m a word nerd – a small sample of poems below

I will live, have lived through worse, so I’m pretty confident “this too shall pass”, but I keep wondering when will I finally become that elusive “adult” who has all this junk figured out. The one who can balance a cheque book (who knows where the damn check book is), plan a menu that doesn’t involve the microwave or popcorn, gracefully juggle work/family/life/the universe and everything, always have clothes on the right way out, has a happy well adjusted marriage, never puts their foot in their mouth for weeks at a time, or overreacts in dramatic and super embarrassing ways, and never ever has orphaned socks? You know that mythical creature known as the well adjusted, mature adult. I’ve heard of them, even think I’ve spotted a few, but ultimately those ones turn out to be just as flawed as the rest of us.

And so it goes.

Life, crammed full of messy, undignified, embarrassing, humbling, glorious and sacred moments, full of enough sorrow for us to appreciate joy, and enough ugliness for us to appreciate beauty, and gratitude, because in the end it’s a beautiful world, full of kindness and love.

crappy picture, but I made this

swinging

Swung for love,
flung in-between
sound earth and sky’s embrace
green willows as my garland.

My sadness, in degrees does soar away,
and whispers back again.
My heart belonging
to faraway horizons.
Time so briefly spent in tumbling clouds
divides more wide than from tides to moon,
but still my flight will not wait
for breath
or sight
as I swing from sorrow
and back again.

made this too

sound

do not think
that you can
know me
for I am only
one heart
beating
in a world
too full
with sound.

Enough
Enough. These few words are enough.
If not these words, this breath.
If not this breath, this sitting here.

This opening to the life
we have refused
again and again
until now.
Until now

– David Whyte, Where Many Rivers Meet

The Guest-House

This being human is a guest-house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you
out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

– Say I Am You: Poetry Interspersed with Stories of Rumi and Shams, Translated by John Moyne and Coleman Barks, Maypop, 1994.

Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you have ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

– Derek Walcott, Collected Poems 1948-1984, New York, Farrar Straus Giroux, 1986.

The Waking

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

Theodore Roethke

meanwhile, when you were focused on back to school, this happened

1 Reply

So This happened today.

A friend from one of my online support groups summed it up beautifully “Today was epic! Illinois legislators passed House Bill 1, the Heroin Crisis Bill that opens up treatment options for ALL who suffer from the disease of addiction. You no longer have to be wealthy, or have “the right kind of insurance”…all you have to do is want to get into recovery, and a way will be found.”

Alex Colville, Horse and Train,

People have died. Way too many people have died, are dying now, and will die from this disease.

I don’t mean to be unkind, really I don’t, but there are days when reading about how hard it is to have your well, well and alive, well and alive, and thriving, child away at college and how much you miss them, and all the money you have to spend on their phones, books, cars, rent and so on, there are days I just can’t read your Facebook posts, or look at pictures of your kids’ dorm room, college campus, and/or sports team. Today is one of those days. Today I am missing my son, not because he is away at college and spending too much money, but because he is away in treatment half a country away. He’s been away for over 15 months, without holiday weekends visits, or summer or Christmas at home. I haven’t seen him since December, his sisters since last June.

And I know there are people reading this who would give anything to have their child safe and in treatment, anything just to have their child alive again.

We are very, very lucky. We had the “right” insurance, sort of. More accurately, we had insurance and the time, and the physical and mental tenacity to fight, to fight over and over and over again, for coverage that was constantly denied. I can’t even think about the money still owed.

So yeah, today was important. I am hopeful. I am precariously optimistic that things could get better, that fewer families will watch their loved ones die from lack of adequate treatment. I am also tired, and feel like my skin is way too thin, and stretched way too tight, and feel like I have no defenses left, no protection from the emotions this stirs up. Oh, and I hate this disease, I hate how it decimated my family, my son, but also my father and my brother, and all who love and who loved them.

That’s it. That’s all I’ve got tonight. No pithy wisdom, no sage acceptance or quotes about letting go and letting god. Just straight up tired, Maybe tomorrow I’ll be wise.

alone

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In the Magic Mirror, 1934 by Paul Klee

Truth be told, I’m a recalcitrant pain in the ass. Ask anyone who has known me for more than 30 seconds, and they will agree to, at the very least, a certain degree of stubbornness, bullheadedness or, if they’re being kind, tenaciousness.

Stubborn, sometimes to my detriment, and sometimes to my advantage, not that I have any clear indication which way things will ultimately be viewed by me, by others when I start down one path or another. There is much to indicate that I was born with an innate intractableness. I was a “you’re not the boss of me” kind of toddler (child, pre-teen, teenager, adult….) I’m sure I was a very difficult child to parent. I have also had a series of life experiences that have reinforced this tendency.

I have lived two years longer that my father did, a curmudgeonly and proud man, and 14years longer than a dear friend, a tenacious and brave woman. How much wisdom, if any, the extra years have given me is difficult to say. It has been my experience that I am the only person who will take care of me and my children. I have spent decades wishing for something different, for my champion to appear, preferably on a horse (I also have a rather strong sense of imagination and a certain dramatic flair), to protect and to save me. I have looked at other’s lives who seem to have that support in a partner, in a family, with great envy, and ultimately cynicism, sadness, and then finally with the conclusion that there is no one who will step up and take care of me, and I best get over that idea and get on with taking care of things myself.

So today. Today I found my mind wondering down that well worn path where there is no help to be had and, I did something that on the outside could be considered brave or, in equal measure, moronic, but in actuality was pride, injury and stubbornness. Today I sprayed a paper wasp nest in my yard. I’m allergic to them, and should have found another way, another less allergic person, but then my injured ego steps up and I find myself donning jeans and long sleeves, and putting Benadryl in one pocket and my phone in another and marching (too strong a word, walking slowly is better) to the nest. It was larger that I remembered, and buzzing with activity. I was, scared to death. I also was resigned, and my mind was sitting firmly on past memories of being left to fend for myself when what I longed for was for someone to help me, a learned helplessness sort of thing. Learned helplessness, except I don’t lie down and whimper, I push myself to do things I maybe shouldn’t because I believe that no one will help me, or if they say they will, they won’t actually show up. It’s a destructive and self fulfilling cycle of thought, first expecting to be abandoned, and then acting like it’s happened whether or not it has.

At a Window

BY CARL SANDBURG

Give me hunger,

O you gods that sit and give

The world its orders.

Give me hunger, pain and want,

Shut me out with shame and failure

From your doors of gold and fame,

Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger!

But leave me a little love,

A voice to speak to me in the day end,

A hand to touch me in the dark room

Breaking the long loneliness.

In the dusk of day-shapes

Blurring the sunset,

One little wandering, western star

Thrust out from the changing shores of shadow.

Let me go to the window,

Watch there the day-shapes of dusk

And wait and know the coming

Of a little love.

I didn’t get stung, but the nest is still buzzing with life, just damp. I stood for a long time in the hardware store with a can of Raid wasp killer in one hand, and an organic alternative in the other. My organic choice resulted in a damp, more irritated and very peppermint smelling wasp’s nest. So tomorrow I will try again. I’ll try again alone, because that’s how I do this sort of thing, afraid or not, this time with the toxic stuff. That’s the stubborn pain in the ass part of me that is just going to get this thing done, dammit, but I’ll still have the Benadryl.

Weathering

old poems

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Over 9 years ago I stopped drinking. It’s not something I advertise, but it’s not something I actively try to hide either. The disease runs in my family. I am alive, and on most days well, only because I found a way to stop.

I used to write poetry. I used to write quite a lot of poetry, and today for many reasons I dusted off writing from around 10 years ago, from one of the most difficult times of my life. If there was a way I could take what I’ve learned, box it up and give to people I love I would do it. I can’t. I can only pray and hope, and continue to take care of my own sobriety. Someone told me when you quit drinking you feel better, you feel pain better, joy, love, sorrow, you feel everything that you had been drinking not to feel. It can be overwhelming. Most of the poems are about that, about feeling better.

I don’t know why I moved away from poetry, and started using more words to write blog posts instead. Poetry is much harder, maybe that’s why.

Here are some, in no relevant order, because organization of anything creative still is challenging for me. Most are free verse, a few are cinquains, one of the very few forms of poetry I had any proficiency with.

blackness

a diving spotted loon
to which the surging waves arouse no wonder,
a soaring mateless seagull beneath
grave misting clouds,
a pair of blackest crows
in deliberate and dark discourse,
and the early morning chorus of birds
I have not met,
here are my early morning companions

this morning,
my last morning here.

and this I ponder wrapped in heavy woolen
drinking strong coffee
made stronger still with Jamison’s

I ponder these birds
the burden of their sky
the profundity of their black waves
their universal harmony

and when the drizzle mixes with the rising surge
the loon dives again and does not return for me
the crows take their argument to distant trees
and the seagull glides so low under
the weeping
clouds – I cannot breathe to watch

I am alone
with their water and thoughtful stones
the unspoken rain
and within my silence
with the blunt smell of cold
and the raw touch of
grey horizon light

in the untraveled blackened depths
under which
I will always lie.

fish hooks

Sober,
I have not known this face
reborn in palest newborn skin
translucent, and
tissue thin
all my nerves unclothed
disgraced, at their own nakedness

I do not know how to use these hands

a flesh of weeping grief
from savage shredded tracks
the tiny fish hooks sliced
and pierced
with their
sharpened razor points

of grief and joy and hate and fear of love
and of despair

I have never heard my voice
still they dig
minute barbs grasping
my unprotected soul
wrenching out my
heart
for all to see
tearing open my
eyes
so I must look

at the person I do not know.

river

Has there always been such green
all and each
so richly saturated
with this chromatic life,
these leaves, spirits within living stories,
twisting over
and around
and in between
each and one another
in their lilting seduction of
wind and sun?

did they do this yesterday?
did they flicker in this coquettish glee
inside my footfalls
sun tickling tenderly
each surface – so thoughtfully webbed-
while in their turn they reached
to lick the honeyed beams
along this muddied path
to water’s edge.
I walk to sense the flowing strength
flirting within twinkling beams
and to caress,
between reflective ripples,
smooth slippery stones
filled with energy.
will there always be
such life?

ecstasy

I would let go
but for the colour.
still,

I like to sneak to the edge
and dig my fingernails into stone
and ponder
the relief of falling
the ecstasy in shattering bones, the
liberation of seeping blood. but

when I crawl back
it is for the shade
of your tears.

unforgiven

who do I imagine I am?
breath?
thought?

in a place
where ten year old
bulldozers tear down
one hundred year old trees
in this place where
house sized wood chippers
vomit green onto
clear cut ground

bare foot in the grass
the rain will not
baptize me

my finger waits
for the drop that
could forgive me.

bones

far away
I am this night
as blackness swallows day
sweet, my grief
rests in the folding
black from bloodless red,
lay my bones,
my lonely love
lay my bones
and heart of clay

silences

I have not
always shown
me, as I am.
not in open, worn
these ragged
clothes.
let sun and rain
peel away my
raw, and
bloodied flesh.
and so,
I sometimes pause,
to wonder
at the silences.

for you

for you
I would wrench
thunderclouds from rapture
accept their jagged burning rage
weep till there is no rain
and scream out all your agony
until my heart disintegrates
in thunder

for you
I would dry dew’s tears
from each and every
green and glistened blade

for you
I am salt
and I whisper
through your hands

crying

I cry for what I cannot save

for the dying roadside bird
bloodied under blackened wheels

for the frightened child
held down
learning how a secret’s kept

I cry for
young veins punctured
with poisoned needles

I cry for pain
I feel screaming inside you
that fills all of me
that I cannot take away

for the sickness
that I comfort
but cannot heal

I cry for all that’s broken
that I cannot fix

and some days
I cry
for me.

cold sleep

no stars
weep abandon
as our discarded die
disappeared in foul rooms, cold tears
dried wine.

claws

fear strolls
on soft bear’s paws
hushed growling, calmly tastes
decides – and stretching sharpest claws
carves me.

cut me

I hate
the sky’s fading
touch – etched within my heart
take the words from me – cut them all
away

him

there was a time
he could not
release me

that was
before

now his
ever restless feet
carry him away

a broken toy
stepped on, crumbled – yet
walking still
a stranger
that I tried to stand before

uncovered
as only myself
a broken, walking doll

he is
not a boy, but
a man, terrified of the ghosts
in my eyes
of the unsayable
that slices through my rooms

he is close
and he is untouchable

in a way
that cuts through me

alone with his beauty
his pain
his cruelty
his anger, and
his love

an embrace unfelt
laid cold
upon my soul.

Like I said, I used to write poems. There are more here.

Don’t waste the pretty

not my first rodeo

4 Replies

This is not my first rodeo.

Not the first time I’ve received this call. Not the second, third, or fourth time either. I don’t know what number I’m on. Not the first psych hospital I’ve dealt with. Not the first time we’ve talked about suicide.

I do know there is always that part of me that exhales at the sensation of the sky finally falling. The, Ah, there it is! sensation that you couldn’t quite put your finger on until the phone call. It’s not that I think about it all the time, I don’t, it’s just always there, hanging over me, just hanging around in the background, waiting. One moment it’s clear blue, and then the sun disappears, and purple-black clouds fill the sky, my skin gets cold, the wind picks up and I realize that they were always just at the edge of my vision, waiting. For what? It’s hard to say. Hope? For me to say “he’s doing well” a certain number of times, and to start to believe it?

The shift in me starts with the caller ID, I start to feel cold, to watch the sun disappear. As details and events become confirmed (confirmed, because part of me is always waiting for this call) I become still, focused, logical, organized, and pragmatic.I do what needs to be done. I call people, I email, I research, I take notes, lots of notes, notebooks full of names, places, numbers and details. I go through the check list, he’s alive, check, he’s safe, check, will he remain so long enough for me to sleep tonight?

I’m tired. Just really tired. Maybe repeated combinations of sad, afraid, anxious, pessimistic and optimistic eventually just register as tired. I do bits of the Kübler-Ross tango, but more quickly and with less intensity than before. Really I’m just tired. And no, generally I don’t want to talk about it.

Over the years we’ve let a lot of things go. When you talk about your kids and their accomplishments, their dreams and hopes I generally stay quiet. What could I possibly add? That our successes are measured on a much smaller scale. Is he alive? Is he safe? Does he have times where he feels happy? School, grades, girlfriends, cars, jobs, these are things that fell away.

What thou lovest well remains,
the rest is dross
What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee
What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage

– excerpt from Canto LXXXI by Ezra Pound

And so it is.