Would that all who’d seen fit
To have been unkind to me
Have their childhood wounds healed
Here, look from my window
Flower and vegetable gardens
Fruit tree and fire pit
Baseball, my love, baseball
Did I give you space
Enough that you’d see you’re whole
And see fit to heal?
Space, the enemy
Distance, a demon
Molecules collect between us, acting as some referee to our match
Banished to our corners before the fight begins
If these lacerations and these mangled bones, inflamed, remain this slow to heal
If Winter wishes to outrank
Then we want our angels
So there he was
That three-plus decades-old ghost of a love-of-my-life
Did we frolic and promise
I can’t say
Because suddenly, there he wasn’t
Did I wail, unrelenting
Did I bargain
You’re proof of said sale
Virtual man
Band-aid boy
Slapped against my heart, for I wanted healing quick
I let you
Cut me lengthwise with such narcissistic tongue
With this new heartbreak, find me
Not wailing
Not bargaining
Just reflecting
Lesson learned, this
Motherfuckers like you come and go in waves if I let you
Grown woman, now
I heal good, so no next time
Dime a dozen, you, spy boy, and I’ve put away my pocketbook
In the perfect of now, get in line
Come see my spine
Singing prettily
My strong, fractured song
Standing upright, dancing, sprinkling
Cinnamon-sugar safety
In the spotlight of my doorstep
My gift to you, Sir
I forgive that you failed me
My gift to myself
Off the mountaintop
More oxygen to these wounds
Less surprise attacks
It will disappoint you to find, today I have nothing to say to you
Except that I am healing
And I’ve hung a do not disturb sign on my heart, so to that end, beside my bedside — a candle that smells like the sun
But too, our beach and the suntan lotion I smoothed onto your skin well over a year ago
Well into the midnight hour, it burned, and I felt like the irresponsible teen-aged girl I was when we met
Read: Carefree
Good timing, for today is to be an unseasonably warm December day
Without a coat, I’ll work out the difficult feelings while out in the yard, raking one last time before the snow flies
When the last of those magnolia leaves fall later this coming week, I won’t give a damn
I’ll be busy recalling the days when you cared to caution me to please drive safely in the snow
You didn’t want to lose me to accident or injury — you’ve forgotten that, but I forgive you
Silently in my head, I pray these days for your safety too, knowing you never thought much of my prayers
Or my help
Or my written and spoken and demonstrated sentiment
Or my too-small home, where I tried to keep us well
And Christmas is coming
And you won’t be here
And I may mail you a gift and a card, because, after all, I love you more today than I did yesterday, or the day before
My gift and my card would convey this, plus give you one last opportunity before year’s end to ignore again my olive branch
I’m looking forward to the coming decade, despite that it’s looking like I won’t know you then
About your birthdays, I’ll still celebrate them
I woke up at 2am to tell you, I have nothing left to tell you that I’ve not been sure to have already said
A wordgirl gone reluctantly silent with you
Accept that I am healing
My heartpath must choose
Bow, listen and listen, bow
If I will be healed
Craft Art Credit:
“Wood Sun Who is Too Cool”
Nicole Durand, Wisconsin
I speak for the masses
The sides of me inside of me
The arrested phases that do not know how to grow
The girl who grew, too tall too soon
Somewhere in there, a woman walks
Head held high, chin and forehead gently jutted
To the sun, she says
And she does
She does love
To do, to be
She questions me
To lead in love
That gives me pause
First steals my breath, then intuits me to question her back
What of the times you sought to love, to befriend
To be a friend, although in need?
They knew nothing of love!
Friendship foreign to them, they offered an attack
An inevitable abandonment
This is life, and you cannot opt out
You cannot, too, jump ship
You cannot not love, friend
She says to me
She strides onward
To the sun
