Letter to my Unborn Child.

I saw you today…

blond curls bouncing as you played in the field
felt your weight displace in my arms
as I held you for the first time.
as I held you for the only time

Your eyes were his…
mirroring my reflection in them

I am so thankful
to have met you
my beautiful boy

I would have dressed you in pastels all the time

              taught you that different is glorious–
        be whatever you choose

                              taught you that grandpa will never let you down…

                     sang you songs in French

                                            and gorged you on fresh snap peas from the garden

I would have loved you

           more than I ever thought possible

                            given you every opportunity for greatness that I could

                  and always displayed your artwork with pride

I would have never missed a chance to watch you play soccer

            or dance

                or beat your father at chess…

I would have taught you the importance of doing for yourself

                      and made sure you knew you could always ask for help,

             would have read to you each night

                                           the many, many books Grandma would give to you

                        and we would laugh

                                        and play

                                             and be silly

                                                                         just because we could…

I would have built you a sand box in the garden

                              like my father built me

                  and a fort in the trees

                                        where imagination could change reality

                        and anything was possible
              would have kissed every skinned knee
                                wiped every tear
                                        and made sure you always wore your helmet–
                  your mind is too precious to risk.

I would have walked behind you in life

              catching you if you fell

                                      but letting you lead your own

My beautiful boy,

Oh how I would have loved you…

I’m Trying…

A writer in poet’s skin doesn’t make her any less of a sheep…

Her heavy eyes guilted with the past.

The holy water didn’t burn as I had expected it to.

Marked by my palms and forehead, I wept…

I am to name him, but can’t take the name he was promised.

The skeptic in me will not triumph over the need to heal.

He lashed out with I hate you as I pushed for words to bleed from

Broken in front of the crowd, I stone myself…

Waiting for clarity, knowing faith won’t happen in a weekend—too respectful to leave like I ought.

She told me I had the most amazing grace about me—so far from hearing I was graceless.

My story rambled its way out in word vomit; I hate to say his name.

They wrapped my womb in gauze as I mourned the death of my sexuality. 

If God put me on this path to healing, he doesn’t know me as well as he should. 

I will not force myself to pretend to believe in truths I can’t wrap reality around. 

Praying permanence to a cloak wrapped round the cross solidifies the unworthiness I feel in my own life—I am not ready to give in to faith. 

How can I burry something that was thrown out as hazardous waste? 

Curling up in fetal position, shielding myself from conversion—what am I doing here? 

I don’t believe…

The Words I Needed…

Reality morphed as if transcending time
I sat before him
unable to look to his eyes
purging injure
releasing rage into tears
letting strangers take what he could never
spitting blame at the mask he wears
wishing for retribution
retaliation
gratification

Say it…
say what he never would…

“I hate you!”

Thank you.

Faith

the blind man begged for healing
prayed for light to his darkness
believing stories told of His greatness
I sat in distrust
to what I was being taught
my ears fighting doubt
as it escapes from my own eyes
I had come to heal
though not ready to relinquish strength
to Him
which I don’t yet believe

skepticism and common sense
fight the naiveté of having faith

just to have faith

What My Fingers Say…

I can’t believe I am back to this point. Three years have passed and I still feel that so much healing has yet to take place. I tell myself I don’t hate you, but I say that just to deny myself the hatred I want to use to replace the emptiness. I wonder if you feel the irony of being filled with emptiness when the concept is all I can wrap my mind around.

I loved you and hearing you say that you never loved me, that you lied to me all those years, justifying your actions today; to validate the relationship you and she have enrages my very soul. I should thank you for that—freeing me of the numbness, be it for a moment, that I have lived in and around since I left.

I write what I can’t find the courage to express—a sort of exhibitionistic freedom that bares not the consequences your voice brings. You tell me you don’t know how, but I don’t believe you try. I want to hate you for not trying or maybe for not succeeding. Knowing back then that we bore the consequences together might have saved me from this today.

I spent my day in a room where strangers backed out one by one; not able to handle the consequences their faith forces upon them. I distanced myself from them in the very beginning – bracing myself for what believing eyes might cast upon my soul. I have no faith, and perhaps that was what was wrong all along, but I blame you in part. I have burdened my shoulders with this heavy load for far too long, unable to balance the weight of my goals with one hand while the other holds to the past.

I want to let go and let live…

Retrospection

remnants–
tainted by hindsight
infected with rationalization
rotting in my memory

broken pieces of the puzzle
taped together
in no particular order
no more accurate
than eye witness testimony

anything that mattered
was thrown out
with the blood stained bathwater…

2004.

searching for some unknown aspect of self reflected in the other

answers to our questions of identity

individually alone, but together lonely

——————————————————-

Someday she’ll find you, like I found you
but you’ll be ready
and you will, at last,
have everything you ever dreamt of
all in your life without me…

———————————————–

November 4th, 12:05am

praying for time to pass

February, nine months earlier

fighting, you’re not in love with me,
make love to me…

Done. chapter closed, moving on–

replacing you with drinking
partying
flirting
…sex

someone new, who cares?

it’s just one night
I can’t stop searching

you’re not here
you’re with her

I’m with child

your child

needles drawing blood

naming consequences instead of children

gas masks stopping time

erasing mistakes with memories

staring at islands on the ceiling

wishing what ifs

as his soul escapes through my tears…

resentment by both
holding firm with no regrets
his soul will return to us
our baby
…no baby

motherhood may never happen
us will never happen
the life is gone
the love is gone

sucked through those very tubes
I am alone
I never thought it would happen to me–
just a statistic
…nothing more

Remnants of a Dream.

it would hit just below my knees
have walked right out of 1952
off white
with a shimmer of pastel–
calm filled with light
accented with quirky blue heels
my great grandmother’s pearls
and the earrings my mom was married in

a summer tea party
complete with parasols
crazy cupcakes
paper lanterns and finger sandwiches
not a rose in sight
Ray on the piano
as my sister sang along
and formality would fly right out the window
while I danced into my dreams…

I wonder…

If my fear of love will ever loosen its grip on me enough for me to break free of its suffocating hold?

Why I place responsibility of this very fear on someone or something other than myself rather than taking control and accepting that it is indeed my own hands that can’t let go of their grip on the past?

What my role on this earth is?

And if I ever will actually save the world?

If my fear of drowning and fear of love are not actually one in the same?

If I will ever actually have the body that I want or if we are programmed to never feel good enough as we are?

What my biography would read like and whether anyone would actually read it?

Who would take the time to write the story of my life and what moments would they write about?

If anyone will ever call me the one who got away?

When it was that I stopped remembering what it felt like to be in love?

If I will ever learn to love someone the way that they need to be loved?

What my life would be like today if it had never happened?

What was meant to happen through it all? And if I learned the lesson that was being taught or if I will be faced again with the question if my action was the wrong one?

What kind of a mom I would have been? And if my baby would have had his eyes and gentle smile?

Whether anyone will actually love me the way I want to be loved?

What I would do without my parents?

Who would speak at my funeral and which songs they would play?

How my life would be different had I not gone to Belgium and whether I would still be a size 4?

If I reveal so much about myself to anyone and everyone because no one has ever really asked?

What my reoccurring dreams really mean?

If it is my fear of loneliness that keeps me from letting anyone in?

What it was about him and I together that was so destructive to both of us?

Whether anyone will ever touch me again the way he touched me?

If I could have somehow prevented my sister’s rape and so many others?

Where unanswered questions go…

I Want…

   I want to sit in silence

               let the world around me move at its own pace

        rendering me purposeless

                            I want to close my eyes

                     leave memories in the past

                                         rest my weary soul

                                 I want to not be asked how I am

                                                       people don’t listern well enough

                                              to hear anything but lies