The Web

Charlotte’s weaving another web,

up in the corner by my bed

Such skill with words no one should hear

Why did you have to bring them here

I don't recall the summer sun,
the games you said we played
I only know the twisted ones
that somehow never went away

I know the floorboards knew my name,
I know the walls were listening
I know a child can learn real young
she’s only lovely when she sings

Charlotte’s weaving another web,
silver thread from beam to beam
She catches pieces of the past
and calls them what they must have been

There's something buried by the creek,
something underneath the stone
You can cover up a thing with dirt,
but roots will find their way back home.

Charlotte, Charlotte, spin it slow,
don't pull the thread where I won't go
You ask me for a name I know,
but some things die before they grow

I've given you all the words I know,
I've given you my oldest tongue
I've told you every little thing
I thought a little girl had done

But I am tired of telling it
I'm tired of making ghosts behave
I'm tired of digging through the dark
for something never meant to save

Charlotte’s weaving another web,
but I won't give her words again
I'll leave the little girl alone
sleeping soundly in my skin

For there are things the body knows
that mouths were never meant to say
And there are many ancient roads
that don't need walking twice a day

So Charlotte, spin your web alone
I'll take my bones and head back home
You can keep what you have sewn
I won’t belong to what I've known

Not Better Off

Think I’m scared to dream
Think I’m scared to get my hopes up again
Wanna have a scheme
Want it written out in paper and pen

Like it worked so well before

Like that wasn’t just a rug beneath my feet

Did it matter that he swore

Always and forever he’d be wanting me

There she is 

Sitting in an open field

Isn’t this

How she always feels

Little redhead wishing on a star

Wondering why things are the way they are

Curious why people talk

But never mean the words

Furious with ticking clocks

But never with the birds

Picture this, I’m in the flock

I finally got my wings

And maybe it’s an aftershock

Of harsh realities

But building blocks weren’t working

And the future just kept smirking

Like the cloud that’s always hung above my head

I promise that I’m trying

This ain’t me denying

I’m just out here flying

Proving I’m not better off dead

Think I’m scared to say

Don’t know what it is I’m doing

Like maybe that betrays

Some hapless destiny that’s brewing

Like I’ve never needed help

Like that wasn’t a farce that kept me small

Ain’t that how I’m avoiding hell

Let some man do the thinking, be my all

There I am

Kicking up a Sunday dress

What a scam

Such an unbegotten mess

Just some redhead yelling at the stars

Wondering why things are the way they are

Curious why people talk

But never mean the words

Furious with ticking clocks

But never with the birds

Picture this, I’m in the flock

I finally got my wings

And maybe it’s an aftershock

Of harsh realities

But building blocks weren’t working

And the future just kept smirking

Like the cloud that’s always hung above my head

I promise that I’m trying

This ain’t me denying

I’m just out here flying

Proving I’m not better off dead

My Damn Kids

Every light is on
Socks around the floor
And I can see it all

Cause you never close your doors

Time to go to bed

Next to her guitar

Flower crowns and a brush

Thought she left in the car

Hang it in the Louvre

Put it on the fridge

Every artifact 

Everything that they did

Wallpaper the walls

Inside of my eyelids

Play it on repeat

Tattoo it on my ribs

Those are my damn kids

You hear ‘em singing songs

You pass ‘em on the street

Watch ‘em make a friend

Out of everyone they meet

Watch him make a game

Out of something you would grieve

Still holding on to hope

Still playing make-believe

Hang it in the Louvre

Put it on the fridge

Every artifact 

Everything that they did

Wallpaper the walls

Inside of my eyelids

Play it on repeat

Tattoo it on my ribs

Those are my damn kids

Sit em in a pew

Tell em what to do

Tell em what to say 

And when to speak

They look a bit like you

But I taught em to shine through

No matter what you say

Or what you think

Hang it in the Louvre

Put it on the fridge

Every artifact 

Everything that they did

Wallpaper the walls

Inside of my eyelids

Play it on repeat

Tattoo it on my ribs

Those are my damn kids

The Hill I'd Like To Die On

The hill I’d like to die on is covered in clover and tiny white flowers that leave bright yellow kisses on every bee and butterfly that visits.
The tallest, widest live oak stretches out to frame sunsets and shelters the oldest puppies in the world.

There is a lightning-fast, slow-motion tire swing on the thickest branch that spins around the laughter of little boys and girls that never got buried in old souls.

Somewhere in the arms of the oak, there is a brown-haired girl who simply does not have to do a single thing that isn’t sincere, joyful, or explicitly desired.
She holds loosely onto whichever stringed instrument felt right for the moment’s mood and sings the silliest and most profound melodies into the wherever, for whoever, and no one at all.

Her brothers are LARPing underneath, following whatever rules they made up as they went.
The eldest of them weaves the mythologies of the old worlds in the new one he’s building.
The blonde is impish enough to cause a bit of trouble and wise enough to repair it with the gold leaf of true repentance and growth.
The youngest keeps unintentionally sitting us all down in wonder at the music he makes out of thin air and whatever might become notes.

There is probably a blanket that we forgot to bring with us sitting on the table that has been the stage for countless highs and lows.
Instead, I am sitting next to you on the grass, fingers drifting from the cool earth to the back of your neck or the scars on your arms.
They dance to whatever riff you and your guitar are providing to the two bookend children and all the melodies they imagine.

That is my hill.
That is the thing I am reaching for every single day.

There are mountains between us and that hill.
Mountains and valleys and flat, ever-stretching battlefields.

Our party may gather strays that become family along the way, and I cannot wait to meet them.
We may lose a few limbs, gain a few pounds of baggage. This is to be expected on the journey to a hill one is to die on.

There are many more I would die on if need be.
But that is the one I am walking towards.

67

 

Every year the creeping starts up slow.

Not the kind that will eventually shock you and pop up around a corner, but the kind that looms loudly from a distance that you can not help but notice. Like taxes. Like the inevitable last gust of winter blowing through the Bible Belt after we’ve packed away our Sunday sweaters and the grocery bag of mismatched mittens and neon polyester hats we’ve been collecting for generations for that maybe someday snow.

You wanted to love birthdays. You wanted them to be the days where everyone looked at you and loved you exactly the way you felt entitled. You wanted someone to remember your favorite kind of cake and pour adoration over your head  like Mary and her perfume on Jesus’s feet.

But you didn’t ask for that. You asked for a clean house and obedient children. You asked as though we usually spent our days plotting how to ruin yours. 

You said you didn’t want gifts, but they were expected. That year I cleaned the house top to bottom because I couldn’t afford a gift was maybe the worst. I gave you exactly what you said you wanted and your face fell when there was no package to unwrap.

You wanted to love birthdays but by dusk we were all well aware how much you truly hated them. We wondered if you hated us. I don’t wonder anymore.

So every year the irises bloom and the day comes and I am sad and I am angry. 

I’m sad that the people who should have loved and protected you failed. 

I’m angry that you never chose to heal from it so that you could love and protect us. 

I’m sad that you are so fragmented by your pain. 

I’m angry that at least some part of you knows that and you choose not to acknowledge it. 

I’m sad that a string of choices made by a child set in motion decades of trauma for seven people (and their partners and their children).

I’m angry that over 67 years that child never grew up despite having so many opportunities.

I’m sad that one of those opportunities had to be the day I told you I needed you to finally do the thing or you couldn’t be in my life or my children’s.

I’m mad that you didn’t take that one. I’m mad you haven’t taken any of them from any of your children (or grandchildren).

I wish it was just a day. I sometimes wish it wasn’t a day at all. 

But the irises by the mailbox still grow. Irises mean compassion. They mean optimism for the future. They mean wisdom and change.

So I’ll be sad and I’ll remember that you were a little girl with a crap dad and a distracted mother born into a terrible system of subjugation and backwards thinking. And I’ll be mad and think about lavender and ask my siblings if I imagined you loving that scent back then to try and pinpoint why a gifted scented lotion could make a mother so mad at her own child. 

I’ll let the wave of grief wash over me and all the colors of its bruising fade a little more. 

I’ll talk about Adorable with my daughter and tell her she’s got a Sunshine Smile. 

I’ll drench my words in gentleness while I tell my son that that word is one we don’t ever use no matter what because it only serves to hurt people and no it doesn’t matter what context it’s in. 

I’ll listen to his brother chatter happily about all the different possible ways he could feel loved on his birthday next month. 

I’ll make the littlest whatever the hell he wants for lunch.

I’ll look at them all and know that they know how deeply I love them and how interesting and wonderful I think they are. I’ll breathe easy knowing that they know a healing version of me, that they’re acquainted with the sound of a genuine apology from their imperfect mother, that they aren’t afraid to make mistakes around me, that they are comfortable being their entire selves. 

And probably some day there will be another day on the calendar that will make me sad and angry because you never did take those opportunities.

But my kids won’t feel the way I feel in March when each June comes around. Not if I can help it.

20 Minutes of Guided Meditation

There is a heavy emptiness around my skin.

It is the weight of falling asleep in front of a tv around 12:34am at 6 years old. 

It is the burden of telling no one in the moments after waking up in a strange parking lot in disheveled clothing with an empty condom wrapper staring at me from the floorboard. 

It is the gravity of climbing in bed with an “It’s fine, I’m fine” another night after finding that the person I belonged to was still searching for someone to belong to.

It is pounds and pounds of all of those moments teaching me the lies that I am not worthy of being taken care of, being believed, being protected, holding space for, being faithful for, being valued or cherished.

It is why I devoured crumbs of affection as though they were five course meals. It is why I stayed too long, put up with his tolerance in exchange for my love and devotion. It is why I overthink every compliment, every declaration of friendship, every other’s attempt at relationship. I floated in waters of false belief for 30 years and have still not wrung out the droplets that soaked into my bones and my lungs.

It’s why I stay busy, always doing, always seeking more to do so I don’t have to sit and feel it bubble up to my brain and wake that voice that still lives there. That “nobody wants you” voice, that “nobody every did” voice. Because people take care of things they wanted. Because I take care of the people I want. The thought of my child not being put to bed with love breaks my heart. The thought of someone I care for hurting in silence destroys me. The thought of my person feeling discarded by me feels like freezer burn in my veins. So wouldn’t it do the same to them? Wouldn’t they have acted differently if they ever wanted me?

I hate those questions. I hate that I still care about the answers and that most of the answers are just “Does it matter? It still happened.” Or maybe even worse… “They just weren’t the ones who wanted you.”

I’m not even angry. Just still so damn sad. It’s futile but I want to know who I would have been. I want to know the version of me that didn’t have to swim upstream alone being beaten back my currents and stray boat paddles. I hate the idea that the hurt made me kind or intentional or any of the things that I am. I was already those things. Every story of memories I don’t have access to anymore is about how sunny and friendly and helpful and affectionate I was. Looking at pictures you can see it. 

It hurts seeing how positively bright and happy I looked knowing how that little girl hurt every damn day. How fucking lonely I was all of the time. Nobody keeps sad pictures I guess, but I know how I mask and how I’ll play that part no matter what’s going on while people are looking.

When I sit still and there’s no one here holding me it’s like the entirety of my being is reaching out for someone else’s arms to swallow me up and make that weight around me melt away. I play the music and I write the poems and I watch the movies or drink the whiskey to try and quiet my begging body from feeling the pounds and pounds and pounds.

I’m so incredibly tired of being squashed by it.

The Poem

I think maybe the stars wrote you like a poem

Not the kind that rhymes and has some rigid scheme and is all flowery sentiments

The kind that keeps the reader alive

The kind that turns one way and then the next with those perfect imperfections that fold right around your soul

The kind that makes the reader wish to be covered in the words and completely consumed

I think maybe the stars wrote a messy, twisted, beautiful poem and have been waiting for 32 and a half years for the exact right moment to plop it in front of me

It’s the most thought provoking, hope inspiring, calm inducing, faith restoring, courage building, lovely poem I have ever laid my eyes on

This poem understands pain and deep joy like two sides of the same coin

This poem is comfortable with madness 

This poem holds up a mirror and tells you the truth your eyes haven’t translated yet

This poem wraps you up like it doesn’t want to let you go and yet… it still does when the time comes, without any anxious fear that you won’t return

Of course you’ll return

That poem is THE POEM

Nobody finds THE POEM and just reads the next one like it’s nothing

That poem gets folded in your pocket and plastered on the walls of your heart and recited to anyone who will listen and some who would rather not

I think the stars wrote you like a poem and hand delivered you to me the last Monday of December all unassuming and nonchalant like it wasn’t the gift I’d been longing for my entire life.