I was youngish. Ready to die. Impulsive. Sporadic. So filled with self-loathing. A deep, deep hatred for myself and anyone who dared to say anything nice about me. Look at me with anything close to kindness in your eyes and I would belch venom. People liked me anyway. Called me friend. Looked out for me. Wore out their knees saying prayers. I pushed and pushed until they went far enough away I didn’t feel threatened by their caring.

And then I met him. Dreadlocked and haunted, broken but pretending to fly. I knew he couldn’t hurt me. I let him in. Unprecedented access. Except my past, my sorrow, my trauma, I hid all of that. It was easy back then. I was so checked out from reality, so far from caring about myself and detached from my inner truths, any sense of grounding, that it hardly hurt at all.

I had to go away for a while. Couldn’t call him until the day I was released. He took a bus to where I was and we stayed in a hotel that night. Made a baby. Not on purpose. I wasn’t allowed to take my birth control where I was and I wasn’t smart enough to insist on protection.

Y’all I was so lost. I was so close to death every day, and I wanted it so badly. Not enough to take an action, but enough to not prevent harmful action and to put myself in danger at every opportunity. Then I figured out I was pregnant. It changed, well, everything.

For the first time in my life, I cared for myself. I cared about what I ate, how much I slept, how I felt. I cared about making amends and building bridges over the skeletons of the burnt. I mentally and physically transformed into a vessel worthy of bringing another human onto this earth. Thank god I had 9 months. That’s not some overnight shit.

This isn’t my birth story, so I’m going to skip all that and get to my first time seeing and holding this little man who took a self-absorbed, nihilistic asshole and turned her heart into more than a muscle that pumps blood. He is the reason I am alive today, he is my everything.

His name is Abacus. And he’s not talking to me right now. He’s 20 at the end of August. And every moment of every day I regret not doing a better job of letting him know that he is my everything, because it feels so lonely, to have everything and then watch it walk out of your life. It feels so empty, but he is my son. I am his mother. And nothing will ever change it. That’s forever.

I traced You

at the scene

of my arrest

the heart

in desist,

carved

a shade

so deep

i lost-

myself

in the

tunnel

Left,

lying

in the

shadow

of your

Silhouette.

#darknight #BoardCanvas #Everything

Challenge of the Week CCXXX

What can't be seen is everything else

A panoply of a universe unconnected to me

A blind panorama I enter, imperceptive

Of that everything

And those everythings

Who/that await me

Nocturnal footsteps are mine

By the grace of lunar guidance

Shafting through the canopy

In staccato flashes syncopating with

Twig snaps and panicky creature-scurrying underfoot

Like me

Mine--not the only steps

Must move forward so

I can't put my back toward it

My soft-side, exposed for punches to come

Into the unknown smells and sounds

And fears

A chilled, shard-filled ambiance

Hangs, horizontal, posting right-angle triggers

With Damocles poised, smiling

To shred my quest

Before passing unmolested, unharmed,

And--breathing still?

A pan flute calls the vector to forward me

I raise each step to purchase tentative footway

And listen to each unconfirmed movement

Mine or, otherwise, caprine

A metered journey, carefully slow

And terrifying

So alone but, alone, not

A horned shadow mirrors each displacement

Of gravelly footfalls that announce

My tentative march toward the unknown

Entity who receives me expectantly

And angrily

Can vengeance come before I

Did-what-I-do to provoke it?

Can effect-precede-cause

And conclude-before-arrival?

Am I walking into a predetermination

Of peril, out of any rational order?

The pan flute sounds as the music of panic

Weaves fugued with the sounds

Unseen-but-heard, heard-but-unrecognized

My center of gravity is fluid, unanchored

I'm in tesseract territory, none of it really here

Or friendly

There is an everything that threatens

In the dark and dank and unseen

Yes, seeing navigates the world--

But dark's hearing invites what's to come

From a world unseen and flows everywhen

Toward me

Everything and everywhen and everyone

Call to me from their horrific singularity

On a number line's eddy currents

Where both sides of zero cancel but don't forgive

Here-to-there is preposterous, yet there-to-here

Is what is the coming-for-me

You cannot be a bulwark to everything

You can only join the cacophony and mayhem

To teach those who follow

That every conquers any

And each-of-us are any who must yield to the every

Until we forget, careless, and thus perish

Turn around!

Put your back to it

You cannot/will not see it, happening

Everything-all-at-once

Unfathomed in panic

And Lovecraftian dreads

Pull the covers over your head!

Brace your soft-side 'gainst terra firma

And suffer what onslaughts come

By wedding the unknown

And making your conjugal bed

On the down of uncertainty

It all started with one ice cream tub.

I told myself that is was just going to be this one time.

One indulgence after losing him.

A sort of post break-up pain killer.

But then it became my everything.

Just like he'd been.

It became apart of my routine.

Just like our little date night's were.

I hate myself for acting like a teenager in a sitcom.

Everyone asks me what's wrong.

And I pretend that I'm okay.

When really every night I sit in my room with the light's out questioning where I went wrong.

Ice cream in hand, as I analyze every choice I ever made.

I suppose that the stuff was a simple reminder that there was still sweetness left in the world.

Now three months without you and yet the habit's remained.

Now I can't get enough of it.

I'm pleasured and sickened by it's taste.

At this point I know it's all just toxic waste.

Ten pounds later and next thing I know I'm staring at you in the frozen aisle of a publix supermarket.

This heartbreak, is nothing that I can sugarcoat.

The past lover, and the thing that got me through.

Both in the same space.

I hold a laugh in, thinking if I'd only had a preview of my life would I have gone through with it all?

I'm 5'61/2 and standing and still this is the lowest position that I've been in.

I'm in front of you, a living shrine of the love that we once shared.

The sweatshirt that you lent me, no longer oversized.

The kisses you left on my neck still there.

The promise ring you left me still stuck on my finger.

The slippers you bought me no longer new.

My long hair no longer golden or long.

And that's something that I do actually regret.

Liver soaked in wine the last thing I'd needed the night you left me were scissors.

Now you are standing in front of me.

You pretend like you can't see the bags that hide beneath my eyes.

Like I haven't been crying these past three months.

Like I'm still that golden girl you left behind.

You look at me like you looked at me the first time we met.

The fireworks in our chest exploding like they did that random night in may.

You ask how I'm doing?

I lie in reply.

I say I'm fine.

I think we both know it's all lies.

The freezers stacked with ice cream send a chill down my spine.

For the first time I look at your face and see that these past months haven't been kind to you either.

You look dead.

Pale-skinned.

Thinner.

And I find myself wishing I had taken that route too.

You run your hand through your hair for what seems like the thousandth times.

And I mirror your actions on what's left of my hair.

I turn the question to you and ask how are you?

You repeat my line.

Fine.

And I know that isn't true.

The scars on your wrist and my throat; evidence that we aren't okay.

Our thoughts echo in the silence of these grocery aisles.

I wonder what would happen if we listened to the silence.

Said nothing and I just grabbed your hand and dragged you back home with me, where you belong.

I tug on the sweat shirt, hoping it might jog your memory of what we once were.

I glance at the aisle's lined with freezers and I recognize that I have a choice.

Either choice is nothing more than a humiliation.

A tear rolls down my cheek.

And as though you've read my mind; in your dirty work boots you step forward too.

The mud covers my fluffy slippers.

Your arms wrap around the sweatshirt you once called yours.

Your hands on me where they should have always been.

I think you must be blind you must see only the old me.

This version of me is no good.

Neither of us really are though.

We walk out of this aisle arm in arm.

The only one we know we'll ever cross.

For a while we will be okay.

Our vices will be only each other.

In truth I think we both know we'll be standing right back here in a couple of months.

We're a beautiful disaster.

I'll lose these ten pounds

I'll toss out the ice cream.

My hair will return I'll be the golden girl again for a moment.

You'll comb your hair.

Your color will come back.

You'll gain the ten pounds I lost.

Our scars will heal.

Only to be replaced in a few month's when we attempt to make it in this world without one another, again.

We're are the definition of insanity.

We try the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.

But we both know how we'll end.

And yet we still hope that in the end this time we'll stick.

That this will be the last time that we will walk into the supermarket and resuming our love story.

The dishes are piled high in the sink,

The fridge guards nothing but a half-gallon of milk and a loaf of bread,

A line of ants is headed toward a spare crumb on the counter,

And she ran out of quarters for the laundromat so she’s on day three of her outfit.

She looked around and smiled.

She truly had everything.

She had enough to feed her children the night before,

She still has enough bread for lunch,

She stayed up reading bedtime stories so late that she fell asleep and forgot to wipe the counters,

And her kids had enough clean clothes for school.

This was more than she had last week,

And the week before that.

She had finally made it.

Oxygen is my everything. However, whenever I go outside all I see are the barren sprawls of land that are depriving me of my everything. Industries sweep away my everything faster than I am able to consume it. Our natural world is being depleted, yet the people who believe money is their everything are continuing to butcher the precious forests and vegetation that is keeping all of us alive. Money is not everything.

Happiness is my everything. However, people who believe material objects are their everything overconsume, leaving others to scavenge for basic necessities. There are innocents withering into tarmac out on the streets as a result. Even small donations go a long way, and when one donates they obtain a "Helper's High" as our brains release endorphins to make us happier. Sharing is everything. Material objects are not everything.

Learning is my everything. Yet, there are children who do not even know how to spell their own names. Resources are not being given. Chances are not being given. People who believe that being a "beautiful little fool" is their everything, are not able to see others. They cannot see the injustices facing poorer communities. Yes, sometimes it is better to be ignorant, but ignorance is not everything.

Safety is my everything. However, there is major gun violence, corruption, sexism and racism. People who believe they are everything do not care what happens to others. When everyone only looks out for themselves, the world deteriorates into chaos. Understanding others produces a safer world. Selfishness is not everything.

Having peace, cooperation and thoughtfulness in the world we live in is my everything.

in the will

. . . . . . . .

faith & its

Potentiate

. . . . . . . .

Even in the midst

of the crisis of a lifetime,

a sea change, a crack in time

that changes everything that was

to everything that is

as I look ahead through fog

at everything that will be,

sometimes there’s a good day.

Today

I showed the kids our new house

and they loved it,

filled it with their laughter and excitement,

their playing, running, love.

Earlier

we went to the big playground,

the one with the towers and the slides

high like skydiving,

and they dove and flew,

and before that, church

full of its loving arms and smiles.

For dinner

I made grilled cheeses and tuna melts

and they came out perfect,

crispy buttery outside,

flaky creamy inside,

an explosion of taste,

and there were smiles on their little faces.

And then you

built me up with your words again.

Those perfect words,

just what I need at any moment,

and you write them, speak them

like no one can

because you are poetry

and I love poetry more than anything.

And I smoked a crazy Alice

and a bowl full of weed

and I smiled.

The only thing missing

was that you weren’t here.

You’ve only ever

seen and smelled the smoke

but I want to show you

that where there’s smoke there’s fire,

and maybe one day,

we can finally

make poetry.

it used to be the persuit of happiness

it used to a person

it used to be music

but things start to worsen

then it was myself

and how i looked

trying to find answers

from inside a book

then it was Andrew

and his charasmatic evil

i worshipped like a dog

but it proved to be lethal

then it was self improvement

trying to change

the wondering why i couldn't be great

then it was death

of myself, the blood

as brutal as possible

dead in the mud

but now

i dont know

nothing i guess

my everything is knowing

i don't know shit

Oh, to see the world again with the wonder of a child.

To look at things grown dull with time and see a bright new future.

To be asked what I want from life and say a new thing every time

Because the world can be anything, and anything's worth everything.

I'd like to read just Dr. Suess and spend my days in Whoville,

Or lie alone in a flower meadow, think up poems all day long.

I'd like to leave the world of work and school and eat and sleep

And run away to one of jogg-oons and zizzer-zazzer-zuzz.

So what is my everything? It's everything that's not.

It's what I do when life takes a break, leaves me and my fantasies.

It's the child that takes reins in my heart when life's weight drops away.

My everything's the part of me that takes wing, lets me fly.