Tag Archive: loss


Answers in the Silence


I shout into the wind

the full volume of my pain

and listen for the answer

echoing back at me in silence…

my hands fisted at my side,

my soul reaching for hope.

Even on the most hope-

less days, the night wind

comforts, loves, caresses my side

and gently lifts my pain

offering me peace, silence

and hints at the answer

I have been searching for…answers

to my desperation…this subtle hope

sings to me in this silence,

accompanied by the whispering wind…

the balm to my soul’s pain..

wind’s fingers tracing the inside

of my open collar, along the side

of my neck.  What if the answer

to happiness, is embracing the pain?

Could that be our hope?

Pain danced away in the wind,

twirling in the dark silence?

Slowly the raging cacophony falls silent

and peace settles gently inside.

My mind still on the wind’s

Embrace, no longer looking for an answer

just awash in that elusive hope…

for the moment, a reprieve from pain.

I look into the eyes of pain

reflected in my mirror… silence

all around me… hope

slowly growing deep inside.

Questions forgotten, unanswered

for the moment, healed by the wind.

Despite the pain always inside

Despite the silence, years with no answer

I will forever find hope, waiting on the wind.

Healing Wounds


Watching the rain

Stream past the balcony

Dripping from 

Lampposts

Below me…

I feel the absence

Of you

And I embrace

This peace..

No slamming doors

Or breaking dishes…

No raised voices

Or near *constant* weight

Of disappointment 

…never enough…

…always too much…

I feel another wound 

Stitched closed

By glimmering

Threads of rain

Under a cold

Gray sky

Another layer of fear

Washed away in the storm.

Darkness Invades


I tried to read

The greats tonight

Leonard, Angelou,

Poe, Frost…

But it is my own voice

Too loud in my ear

That sets me

Quivering – 

With loss, pain,

With fear remembered

And love…lost…

I tried to smile

Around this ache in my chest, 

but each one

Shattered

Hurting my face.

The clouds are moving 

Too fast tonight

Ghosts against

A black sky…

And the breeze 

Doesn’t invite

Doesn’t caress…

Instead… alienates.

There is a wrongness 

And I feel

Cornered

Not romanced – 

Caged…silenced…

Grief-choked.

No song tonight

On the symphony

Of wind

Notes all soured

By this aching

…this pain…

This ground under

Boot-heel feeling

…abandoned…

Alone in the dark.

October Sky


There is a symphony

all around me

that haunts me,

romances me,

bouys me… lifts

me to unforseen

heights and

somehow…

sits with me

in the low places…

lighting the dark

…showing me

the way home…

I hear melodies

in the grass, the leaves,

the whispering wind,

the etherial

beauty in the

song of the stars

full of longing

and an ever-

reaching hope…

dark, mysterious,

beautiful…

home.

Emotions


I feel so much… My heart quakes within me.  I feel so overwhelmed and afraid…I feel so sad and angry… I feel so much love and longing… I feel like I am going to either explode or fall apart… I feel like I am never going to stop crying… but then I will suddenly feel like laughing… I feel like yelling, raging, tearing things…I feel like screaming… I feel so very lost.

Giving Up


I am giving up on you.  Every time I think of you I feel this overwhelming rush of disappointment.  I wonder (sometimes) why I ever bothered.  It’s not like you felt my love anyway.  I tried so hard to love you.  I cooked special dinners (which you criticized) I came to visit (which you took for granted) I doted on you and tried so hard to please you… but I give up… You never wanted to know me.  You never liked anything that had to do with me.  I feel like every time my heart was brought out for you to see it was criticized, judged, not good enough, too emotional, too much of a bleeding heart, not loving enough, not affectionate enough… too depressed, too dark… too sad… too silly…  I am tired of it all.  I give up…

 

I am enough.  I am enough for me.  I am good enough, smart enough, kind enough, loving enough… I am enough. I can do this.

Grief


Some days I am afraid that my grief will consume me.  I fear that I may never recover from this pain.  I keep trying to be normal… (whatever that means) but all I manage to do is to kill my heart – and hurt the heart I most desire to bring pleasure to.  I keep striving for some sense of … what?… peace? healing? wholeness? normalcy?  I don’t know.  I just know I am in so much pain… every day… My heart feels like it is a mangled, half-dead thing, barely beating in my breast.  I don’t know exactly how to feel all of this.  I don’t know how to be in this much pain.  I don’t know how to be this broken.  I do know that I am tired of trying to be whole.  I am tired of trying to be a girl who knows happiness.  I was raped.  I was abused.  I was ignored.  I was hurt.  I was molested.  I was made to feel as though I was garbage and that I did not matter at all.  This does not define me.  It was not my fault.  I do not need to apologize for these things, and I deserve to feel.  I deserve to feel the weight of my past without feeling like I am making the people around me uncomfortable.  My  pain does not make me a bad person.  My flash-backs do not make me crazy.  My fear does not have to consume me.  I am not what I survived.  My past matters.  The defense mechanisms that I developed to survive deserve to be honored – but they are no longer needed.  I am safe now and I will never be back where I was.  I am worth grieving.  This will not last forever.  One day I will breathe again.

Haunted


Haunted by memories I grasp for you and quickly push you away.

I cannot stomach this closeness yet I desire your touch – crave it –  NEED it…

Fear arises as the brush of your hand resurrects ghosts thought long exorcised…

My body trembles, haunted by the abuse that still lives in my skin and in my breast, beating like a second heart.

It is chaos here… shouts, whispers, whimpers, cries…

Locked in the asylum of my mind.

July 23 2014 (120)

Feeling Uneasy


I hate this feeling… this vague uneasy feeling that something is wrong.  I got in a slight accident yesterday and clipped a garbage can knocking my passenger mirror through my passenger side window… there was a loud bang and an explosion of glass flew through the car.  It was terrifying… it was dark and foggy and I did not see the garbage can hanging out into the road.  Now I cannot shake this.  I feel paranoid and worried and really uneasy.  It’s ridiculous… All evening with my husband at home I have felt like he was mad at me or unhappy with me… and he’s not – we talked things out and he’s very warm and understanding – it’s just me.  I feel like the bottom is about to fall out.  I know this is just the accident and the dust will settle soon… but in the mean-time I really want to get back to normal.  I hate feeling so raw and vulnerable.

Unfiltered


So many memories have been flooding back to me lately.  There is something about the Fall that brings me back to my childhood the experiences I had then.  The smell of hay, the crackle of a bonfire, the taste of chili, the crunch of leaves underfoot and the sight of pumpkins appearing on door-steps and front porches.  My senses are alive with things remembered.  Things forgotten are knocking on the door of my sub-conscience.  It is a strange feeling to have so much anger and fear co-mingled with such a sense of nostalgia and contentment.  I remember the sound of my grandmother’s voice… the soft touch of her hand on my cheek… and the twinkling blue beauty of her eyes.  I also remember the tense atmosphere of my home life and the dread that I grew up feeling.  I remember the harsh unpredictability of my father and the anxiety that would flood me when I heard his truck pull in the yard.  I would jump up and feel this flood of fear and adrenaline – knowing that there was no way of predicting what we were in for when he walked through the door… not knowing which dad we were going to get.  It is strangely amazing to me how so much good and bad can be so intertwined in one life.  I know that’s the way it is… that’s life… but it still seems to defy logic.  My head is buzzing with memory flashes…

…blood flowing from my wrist after my first suicide attempt and the panic/relief that I had failed… the boisterous joy of family gatherings and playing with my cousins… the humiliating, painful, surprising “smack” of my father’s hand across my face… the anticipation of a hay-ride at dark with story-telling and song… the relief I would feel after cutting myself and watching the blood flow down my legs… the smell of fresh pumpkins and the mess we would create when we carved them… the constant feeling that no matter what I did I would never be more than a disappointment… the thrill of watching for shooting stars in the cool evenings on New Moon nights…

I feel like a merry-go-round a-la Tim Burton.  I honestly don’t know what to feel…  I just have to continue on this journey to solidify this into one life… and make peace with that life.