cryptorchidism

there was always you, but there was always somebody else

and you asked, me so sad about it, reality kickin' in

I bled all over the floor and all over the sheets but you petted

my head and you shushed me to sleep

and all I needed was you

it was glaringly obvious now

we smoked cigarettes that we didn't want, that I didn't buy

c-i-g-a-r-e-t-t-e-ssss

and counted up c words and p words, so conflicted

 I could cry

but I didn't and I

guess that about sums it up

sums us up

sums up this whole stupid world

the one where I dry my hair out your car window

I guess sometimes it's just harder to know

that you lost something you could still take

I guess it all matters, the reasons we consider

but sometimes it just seems like the sake of the words 

don't mean nothing no more

when our bodies want to talk instead

and I'm here feeling so empty

when I'm wrapped  in a towel on my bed

p.s. that moisturizing stint? I knew what I was doing

I told you, I come by it natural

the things we remember, they usually add up

we tell our own stories to each other

when will we get sick of this? never, I bet

and it's just harder to know, ya know

that you lost something that you could still take

especially when I remember the sunlight so clearly

on your face even while I was being attacked by ants

or taking turns throwing up

but hey, maybe it was the drugs that made you look so bright

(I doubt it)

it doesn't matter how much money you make

it never did

it doesn't matter that I'd be a good mama

cos I'm not gonna have your big bull headed kids

but there were times in the car, I'd thrash in the back

and you'd just look back at me and smile

our hair was usually wet from the river

and I'd hold on to every mile

hating when it when we pulled into the drive

hating going back to death after feeling

so, ya know, free and alive

(another cliche thing to add to our list)

we used to play footsie under the tables

and think we were being sly, but I guarantee you everyone

knew, they just let us think we were living a lie

and they didn't  let on cos to let on

would to be an acknowledgment of magic

and nobody wants to play the fool

or pity him, so I hear

I was picking out records again

the sad ones, the ones we wallow in

and stroking your beard and singing to you

you like my voice and it proves you're a fool

a fool for me now a fool for me then

and I'll have regrets at 110

when I outlive all of you

and have to drink Gran Mon and steal cars 

by my ownself

what do you think our audience thinks

about me sitting home on a Friday night

alone in your old sweatshirt, contemplating my

mistakes in life? and believe me, this could take 

awhile

am I coming down from opiates or am I coming down from 

you? I tried to drown my sorrows in the tub

but instead got mad at the prunes.

It was cold, letting the water drain and I knew

you'd have turned off the a/c and had me a towel

and I knew right then you'd spoiled me-

its the goddamn coming down that kills me

I was making out monochromatic maps

I was sealing my fate

When I started to feel queasy I blamed it on something I ate but you...

you knew

you knew a thing or two about mistakes

and I heated up pizza in the toaster over even though I wanted 

Chinese food, feeling like that's an analogy for my life.

I've got your 8 page letters, huzzah!

Too naive to think nothing about 'em back then

and we spooned in that room, hitting snooze on an alarm clock

six, seven, eight times

pretending the interstate was an ocean

you didn't keep nothing of mine

why didn't you tell me? same reason I didn't tell you

cryptorchidism 

and this instinctual need to be idiots

but you know it's hard when you know

that you lost something you could still take

we've been kidding for years about running away

"Is that for me, it's beautiful" you'd say

never knowing that you were the beautiful one

anyone who can make a loser feel

so alive. but I'm determined

to make you see.

that we always have dancing and i will 

always know that you picked me

(just like a dandelion)

I just wish I could tell you the same.

seasonal depression

I cry because you're so sweet
and because I want to save all our old love letters
in pickle jars
and give them to our third daughter on her
wedding day.

I cry because I feel her
in the cold November wind
and I can't decipher exactly what she's trying
to tell me
but I feel like I'm missing out on a good joke.

I cry because I hate myself
but not in a girl-who'd-cut-herself-suicide-angst type
of hate myself
More of this hating-that-I-can't-escape-myself type of hate myself
It's ok if you don't get it.

I cry because for almost a decade
the three of us were tangled up like a braid
pleated into my hair
And I was always the strand in the middle.

"This I Believe"

Lately, I’ve repeated the phrase, “Everything’s going to be fine,” more times than I could count--enough times to elicit an eye roll from a tired coworker--enough times that my friends have picked up on the “mantra” and started chanting along. Sometimes it takes a descent into weakness to prove what you’re made of and how strong you are. Sometimes you need a push to realize that you should be focusing on the positive.

This summer, when a friend ran into her ex at a bar and started crying, I put my arm around her to walk her away from an uncomfortable scene. Only, I accidentally led her out the wrong exit. Trying to remedy my mistake, I swung my leg over the cast iron railing-- acquiring something I didn’t even know existed: A vaginal hematoma.

I was emotionally and physically vulnerable and on bed rest for the next month. My gynecologist assured me that I was lucky as it could have been life-threatening or rendered me unable to have children. My biggest issue was that as I suffered, my husband sat idly by-- as close as arms reach, yet as distant as the moon.

He left for vacation while I was on bed-rest. One of those lone afternoons, I hobbled to the oven to heat up leftover pizza, while craving Chinese food, and realized that this was an analogy for my life. I slowly began to acknowledge the ways in which I’d settled.

He was supposed to be there “in sickness and in health,” but left for good after a month of staggering emotional unavailability and ‘conditional love’ statements like, “If you’d had a car accident or been mugged, then I’d care about your injury.” 

I realized a lot through this experience that I believe will help shape my future relationships and encounters; like that people do what works for them, whether or not it’s healthy. Or that you can hope someone will change for the better, but you can’t expect it. You have to accept who they are in the present moment.

This trauma has forced me to search for the positive in situations. Instead of wallow in my woebegone existence, I’d rather experience these growing pains as gracefully as I can, welcoming situations and feelings as they present themselves. I remember the physical growing pains from my adolescence with a proud fondness. Hopefully, I’ll look back on my emotional growing pains in a similar way.

The night he left, I cried as he drove away. But, I also stared into the bathroom mirror and said firmly, out loud: “Everything’s going to be fine.” The words would’ve bounced back off of my reflection and into the drain if I didn’t believe them. But I do.

Now, I believe in silver linings. I believe that when people tell you who they are, you should listen. I believe that sometimes it takes a trauma to wake you from subdued slumber. Above all, I believe everything’s going to be fine.

feeling feelings for myself

Yesterday was awful and it's what I get, I know
for eating meat and eating fast food meat at that
two things I never do
because later I felt the mood of that poor tortured animal
course through me, taking away my strength

I had a coworker confess some pretty heavy personal
information and then I went to my first training session
to be an advocate for rape response. Which I think is going
to be great, really. But the subject matter was so heavy, I mean
apparently the youngest reported rape case in Alabama was on
a one month old, and that's a lot to digest.

And then I got in the car and had texts from my aunt
about how her life is spinning out of control and can I maybe
recommend some books for her to read and I love her so much
but our relationship has become so strange and strained after
Wella died. All these feelings came over me so fast.

And as I was texting her back, texts started pouring in from him
about how he needed to borrow my debit card to file for our divorce
on some bunk-ass website, to which, obviously, I said no.

And even though I know that I am not defined by my mistakes
or by my (failed) marriage and that this is probably all for the best and that
I've got this opportunity for a second chance, still, sometimes, I feel really dumb
and still, sometimes, I just want to shake him and ask him
"Why did you ask me to marry you in the first place? Why are you doing this to me?"

I guess the worst part about yesterday was how I feel like I can't talk to anyone
about my problems because of how it winds up affecting them and then I feel bad for
putting my issues on someone else. I'd just rather shut up and be the "strong" one.
But instead I angrily proclaimed "I'm not SAD!" on my friend's couch before
breaking down in tears and then driving myself home.

feminist literature and tales from the crib

I remember one day
sitting at my desk, reading Simone deBeauvoir
listening to my coworker bitch about how her husband
was inept at taking care of their new baby
and feeling pretty anti-men.

ballerina suicide

I keep falling asleep on people's couches
watching the Lifetime movie network
waking up with their cats cuddling with my dog
or their dog warming my feet

and I don't have anyone to call home to
to say "hey, I'm sorry, I dozed off again, I'm on my way,"
and I guess I thought that might bother me
but there's some real beauty in not having to check in.

M*A*T*H

Long division is the devil's breast milk

it's a calculator world
and we're just living in it.