hungry ghost

I've awoken to a stillness.
I am alone.

all night I've wrestled her, tended her, scorned her, held her, tried to love her.
tried to love her.

she wants to talk about her pain. she is a hungry ghost.
it does not end.
it does not end.
she will swallow the world and still feel empty.

implosion.

he says he no longer knows if this is something that will work for him.
he doesn't say it's what he wants.
he's not sure.

he says that today was all about destruction. that nothing about it was
opportunity
or
growth.
just destruction and failure.

he can't do it anymore.
he says he no longer has the resiliency for this kind of thing.
that it can never happen again.

and in all the sideways ways, he punishes me.
I've said sorry and I've rolled to my back and told him what wounds got scratched and where the pain is and how it haunts me and how I'm working on it with every resource that I have.
And, his eyes stay flat and he doesn't even cry anymore.
He's gone.
I've lost him.

Tonight we sleep in separate rooms and my insides collapse like a building imploded.
all ash and dust.
all ash and dust.
The feral child in me, who rolled this ball into motion, wails and cries and laughs, "told you so."
I want to die.
That's her again.
I want to die.

I've failed at love again.
He said so. He calls this a failure. And, because it started with me and because it is mine, I am responsible for this failure.
I have lost the man who lit up to see me, who loved me through everything, who loved me as me.
except this part of me. Because she has scratched him with poison claws and now he is sick with hopelessness and sadness.

How am I here?
my emptiness is endless. my sorrow without hope.
my love lies gasping, waterless and alone.

note to a younger you.

ok, let's you and me talk.

clearly you are feeling pain and we've got to get together and figure out a way to help you share and express that without burning the whole house down.

because,

I love this man. I love him a lot and we have a good life together.

and, lately,

when you show up with your gasoline and matches and start pulling up the floorboards for kindling...well,

that's not cool.

it's really not very fucking cool.

and, you and me,

we have to either get on board with each other and work this out or we just might go up in flames,

for real.

so, how old are you now and what is hurting you so deeply?

All I know of you now is the urgency to destroy and the immediacy of escape. That tormenting feeling of being trapped with your own chaos and confusion, rage and fear. I know that when you show up there is a whole lot of flailing and kicking and screaming.

But, so much has happened that is good since you got stuck in that moment.

Please, come, sit and let me listen to your pain, let me help you fight it out, flee and feel the ways you are all shattered to bits. Please let me help you piece it all back together. Please, come home.

I know your dad didn't love you. I know he told you mean and terrible things. I know that when your father tells you things like that it is hard not to digest it as the gospel of absolute truth. Even when you know better. I know it's hard to pull those words out of your heart, the way they are embedded like shrapnel from that and every other bomb that went off in your war zone. I know that nobody else knows what that is like for you. Except me. I know.

I know.

I don't know how to remove those scars or how to make those words feel less true. I know that I can tell you over and over how much you are loved and how much love you deserve and that you are perfect just as you are and I know that probably none of what I say will land. I know.

They're wrong, I know. Sticks and stones will break your bones. And bones will heal.

Words will always hurt you because there is no way to remove them.

So, how bout we just let it be as it is right now.

You are pissed and frightened and you show up unexpectedly and trample the flowers it took a whole winter to grow. That hurts everybody. We're all in pain. 

Ok, ok. We start with feeling it. That's it. We feel it.

Let me listen.

thanksgiving.

I am thankful that I woke up, day after day,
and chose to live.
For this black bear who paws at me before sinking her weight into my side and stretching her almost as long as me body next to mine, breathing into her safe and happy sighs.
For this tarantulacaterpillar little owl of a cat, perching on my side and sliding her soft as the wings of a stingray paws to touch my lips.
For this joy that overblooms in the universe of my heart that has no fences; for this love.

For this bigger than me bear that finds me in the dark woods and leads me home. How he curls me into his belly and sings me songs to remember who I am. For he who loves me back to love and waits for me to tear the brambles from my skin and let him see. For him, with whom I learn the fullness, pain and joy of that word: love. How it stretches and tears and insists on the courage of dancing with the shadow things that smell like fear and sing like emergency sirens.
For this grand opportunity to reclaim the wilderness and still be invited to live amongst the wolves.

This, my whole heart.

I am thankful for the late night talks with monsters and the moments when we burst into shared laughter. For the small steps towards each other. The wide reaches into holiness.

It wasn't always so.
And, I wonder if it will always be so.

I wonder how some survive and some do not. If it is a great plan written in the notebook of a curious artist or a random scatter of stars and migration patterns.
What kept me from the reckless step that might've toppled me into infinite nothingness? What kept an ember lit through winter after winter after winter?
Why did I live through it without any guarantee or promise that there was a light that would penetrate the darkening?

For fire to persist in such fierce wind, such dampening despair, is either miracle or chance.
I feel I am the questioning that lives to search for more of an answer than a finale that ends with a bang.

but, then again, there go I but for the grace of....god, goddess, divine, protectors, angels, allies, purpose, path, luck?, soul, stars, mystery.........

so it is
a simple and sincere expression of gratitude, every breath, every moment
that I live to savor one more sip
cry one more tear,
step closer to the holy,
embrace and brace and embrace and brace and embrace
this
precious
life
of
mine.

the leaving to become

part one.

ugly.


i am black,  i am yellow
i think i sound like you, i think i look like you.
but, i'm not and i don't.

i try so hard to sing the songs you sing.
i find a note and belt it.
i close my eyes and dance.
i flap my wings and spin and soar,
my heart is exploding with joy.
i feel so much me and, so, a part of you.

i open my eyes and all of you are standing at the wall,
one armed stretching towards me,
one finger pointing.
your laughter is deafening
and cruel.

i stand at the mirror and see nothing but ugliness.
nothing but wrong.
nothing but different.
nothing.

i tear at my feathers and curse my voice for being so awkward and strange
and,
other.
i mourn the space around me and hate myself for wanting any of you.
i hate myself for wanting.

i know i am black and you are yellow,
and i am yellow and you are black.
and, still, the need is greater than the reasoning.
a nest is a nest.