Author: poetryfest

I would love to get married.
I’d love to have someone to love and who might love me back.
A partner.
Someone to build with.
To breed with.
To grow old and die with, especially since my generation might one day be renamed the centenarians.

But please, don’t ask me to care about wedding decorations.
I can pretend to care about many things out of a sense of politeness, a sense of duty, and a sense of shared interests.

But I do not have the capacity to care about the China patterns of plates the extended family I rarely see will eat off on the day I get married.

Bunting or no bunting?
Roses or carnations?
Pino Noir or Malbec?

I am sorry, I don’t have the capacity to pretend to care about these things.
I do not know what bunting is.
Flowers die, so let’s skip them altogether.

Who am I marrying?
Am I marrying the woman I fell in love with?
Or am I marrying a banquet center, along with my future wife’s family and all their childlike expectations of a fairytale wedding paid for with my father’s money?

And, of course, my family will pay, right?
They are rich.
They are in that 1% who cares about the estate tax.
Certainly, we can buck tradition and make the groom’s family pay for everything.

It’s the unspoken negotiation between me and my bride’s family of 9 aunts and 50ish cousins, all of whom seem to have a vested interest in helping my wife and I plan “the most important day of our lives.”

When she visits my parent’s house, you can see her eyes drift about, measuring the drapes and rearranging the furniture in her mind.
When I ask, just as a joke, I’m filled with dread when she tells me her detailed design plan for the home she hopes to inherit.

The entire thing turns into a celebration of spending other people’s money or money that people don’t have.
The in-laws came to us with a delinquent mortgage and maxed-out credit cards.
Shelly marrying me was their lottery ticket, and I can see all the “things” they hope to get out of “the most important day of my life,” dancing just behind their gaze as if they are scrolling through Amazon while talking to me.

Except I couldn’t pretend to care about a Kentucky log cabin or the Forest Park Pavilion.
I couldn’t care about bunting or the correct number of tines on the forks our families would eat off on “the most important day of our lives.”

Does it matter?
Until today, I’ve never said “tines” twice in a single conversation.
Now, it seems their number might seal our happily ever after or condemn us to a life of misery.
We must make the right choice, she says.
I tell her the right choice is any choice that doesn’t require me to use the word tines twice in a conversation.

And I’m told that I don’t care that I’m emotionally unavailable, that I’m cold and unfeeling.
And my head hurts because I can’t possibly think of a rational argument for three tines over four. It seems she ruled out five already, although I’m unsure how.

And so, I tell her that the best I can do is a bad imitation of someone who might actually have a reason to pick one over the other and that I’d be happy to do my best if it would make her happy. And she tells me I don’t respect her or her family.
Neither of us knows I have autism yet.
And so, we did not get married, and I was spared having to fake enthusiasm for overbuilt expectations of a fairytale wedding.
And I didn’t have to disappoint them all with the news that there is no happily ever after.
People grow old and die.
Sometimes happy.
Sometimes sad.
But in the end, always dead.
And the most two people can hope for is to go through it together

You
stand in the balcony
gazing out
at the horizon, where
shanties stretch in disarray.

You watch
the slum,
its seams
unraveling.

And you watch
the moon,
its silver light
spread over tin roofs.

That same moon I wished to love
because you watched it
every night, through your telescope.

Far from the city,
over the lake hidden by the cricket’s song,
the moonlight lies silent.

No woman’s foot
will ever land on the moon’s face.
Our ascent ceased
before it began.

Will shanties ever sprout on the moon?

Its seams are unraveling,
yet space will be made
for another poor soul,
and another,
and another.

Beyond endless time and space,
Bears forth love that springs from the blossoming rose,
Beauty found on unending profound grace,
Amongst a field of gardens a fall seemingly goes;
For which all the stars at night,
Bestow praises on love’s bewitching hour,
Where witness bow down on love’s at first sight,
Unto a most beauteous plenty flower;
As morrow shines into a new breaking day,
Bountiful pleasures flow from its eternal beauty,
When drops of rain shower on this day,
Where this rose thirst…
….and thus, there’s love in eternity.

It happens often.

People see me carrying your 5-11 army camo backpack
as my carry-on on and off the plane.

They say— and it’s usually a man who comments, for some reason,
“Are you Military?” and
I pause and entertain
the cognitive dissonance
of the truth
of my answer.

You WERE military, but that
was before,
before
I was your wife.
So,

“Yes,” I say, “My husband—“

I neglect, on purpose, to mention the rest,
which is
“soon to be ex-husband”
because you are a stranger on the jet bridge,
and we will only speak
for the next thirty seconds or so— at most—
and why,
why

would you want to know all the messy details of my life, and how you left me,
one morning in mid-August after a trip to Kauai to celebrate our third anniversary,

or how I was feeding our not yet two year old, and my breasts were engorged,
because he was already self-weaning when you said it was over,

or about how you leaving me,
was a symptom of a psychotic episode

brought on by a bad interaction of anti-depressants,
and how I am the only one who carries these memories now,
because you conveniently forgot them— a blessed side-effect
of psychosis— I suppose.

Why would you want to know that somehow, in the process
of surrendering my marriage, you moving out, and our divorce moving
forward, I kept this dumb backpack, because
it carries EVERYTHING
and doesn’t hurt my back
when I travel alone now, with our now 4 year old,
2.5 years later.

I neglect to say to you, stranger on the jet bridge,
that being married to you was
like you were on tour overseas,
only worse,

because you were only in the next room—

miles and miles apart we were, separated by dry wall only—

the neglect of our time together made it feel more lonely
than if you had been off fighting elsewhere. Or dead.

So now, here, pushing my son up the jet bridge to our
connecting flight, I grieve the loss of you
with a stranger, in this lie I tell,
because all the years before, when I was grieving
in your presence, with you to watch,
to hear, receive my tears, my denial, my rage, my heartbreak,
did not, in the end make you stay.

To be alone in a marriage
feels a lot like Death’s quiet song.

There is nothing to do
and no thing you can say
or express
that will serve to repair the brokenness
of Neglect and Time.

So the body acclimates and wears grief
like this backpack I have on my shoulders
that bursts with his toys, snacks, clothes— all for our son—
a reminder of what I have had to carry for His sake,
because,
for whatever reason, and I still don’t know why,
you decided one day you never loved me,
but were too cowardly to say anything until
it was too late.

The man asking me smiles
at my answer as we disembark,
recognition and American pride sprung across his face

“Military, Wives… you all are some of the strongest women there are.”

“Yes, we are.” I say.
It is easier to acquiesce into this role.

Here,

society can make sense, and feel safe
with my strength, my rage, my loss.

Any other name for this, and people freeze,
which is funny, and a little sad, because we wives of
Lost Men are everywhere.

It feels good, in this brief interlude,
to be someone else, if only for the length of time of the jet bridge.
Someone whose loss looks like a similar outfit to the one I have been sporting,
lately.

I push Elias up the jet bridge in his stroller.
The man smiles widely in satisfaction as we get to the gate opening
and nods as we embark onto the next
phase of our journey,
and I pretend,
with all of my might
that I am proud of my husband
for his choice to serve.

i fold the sheet in the morning – still crisp white
from my last wash – and carefully set the coffee
machine on, the cups and grinder left neat from the
night before. i face the mirror a few times, open
eyes willing to see not perceive, and scatter about
searching for the morning anthem, a piece of purity
to cleanse my blood. i set the kettle for tea in the
afternoon and fight my way through an empty kitchen
for a good-enough use of lunch. i hold my own arms
when the nights get cold and pick out my favourite
blanket when the storms come. i draw my windows open
and sit beneath the sun on days i’m a little more
depressed and i’m careful to pay the bills on time
– my nest.

and, yes, we all do so well. we are resilient and
strong and determined as ever, dragging our nails
out of the cement base of the well bottom, clutching
breath in our lungs for the next time we fall
under – warriors with unwrapped wrists now healing.

but when you tell me i am such an im
pressive specimen – that you WISH you could
put the parts together this way, please

don’t.

not because we don’t deserve the credit
(because we do)

but when the options are:

death or

determination

there’s very few ways to choose.

i wash my hair out and take careful time in
the bathroom and every time i eat a big,
healthy meal

it is a conscious effort

a struggle learned

a self-care routine

absolutely necessary

to keep us from the bone

to keep us from the sharpener screw

to keep us alive and

i get tired

too.

i just can’t afford to lose.

(anymore)

Memories, stored, may be distorted, as time and life have a way of influencing our thoughts.
I had to adapt to survive… so I will be your historian and bring my memories alive.
Ones actions are shapely factors, of what and when we chose to retrieve, believe, and when having to re-live the past.
Breaks my heart inside, to know how many times “young me” pleaded and cried. I’m here now to redeem her. The forces in my mind have got to release her.
A prisoner of the caged past, eternally sentenced for safe keeping.
This is the collective of me, we shall start with the relentless, resilient, awesomeness of “Human me”.
“I am” the fight, I live, I stand for, the keeper of “Human me”, we, and other earthly beings.
Prosperity, humility, ever evolving, pay it forward of ‘a life I strive to lead.
Relentless! “Happiness” is the captain of our team.
“I am”, leads the charge. No one hurts you, there’s a protector inside.
Fair, remains aware, and will only use force, when involving someone who robs one’s innocence and one’s choice.
Hear me now! I’m someone who protects or dies trying, “I am”, is the voice, in my mind.
-Meowgical

i’m tired
not go to sleep tired

soul tired
the kind of tired
that takes
time

i want to close my eyes
stare at the galaxies
underneath the lids
live there

bed consumes me
never leave, never sleep
barely conscious
routine repeat

work exhausts me
bone deep
how am i supposed to
care

when i can’t sleep
can’t eat
can’t stay awake
can’t

blink back sleep
it’s soul deep

i wanna stare at
everyone that looks
at me and tell them:
i’m tried

the kind that doesn’t
take sleep

and sometimes in the dead of night
when i’m left with my sick and twisted mind
i’ll hold your ashes like they’re mine
we’ll dance around my room together
like two girls with nothing better
to do or not to do
to weep or to scream
i used to plead
on hands and knees
to a Him i only once knew
making deals that were never close to true
i kept fiending and so i offered my blood
controlled by disoriented thoughts that i swept under the rug
but i used my arms
and i used my strength
and i used my words
and i used your worth
and i climbed out of your grave
so now i behave
and i twirl in circles
round and round
missing you and forgetting you
and dancing around the hurdles

So your a year older, big deal!
(Like a good glass of wine, you have fermented into a true classic)!

You looked absolutely, stunning the other night;
(with your silky black hair in a bun, showing your impeccable Mulatta facial features; along with your wide leg Armani suit and your sporty high fashion shoe) that’s because you feel real!

You prepare me the best meals, no big deal!
(You season my rice & beans with an abundance of luv)!

You are a lady that never ever steals, that’s because you know the deal!

You’ve gone through some emotional changes, which in return; anybody ages!

You’ve hung with me all the way, so I do have plenty to say!

During my trauma you were so persistent; luckily, no-one was listed!

You have the guts of a man, witch enables you to take a firm stand.

You never take nope for an answer, people then realize that you are no dope!

You even slapped a doctor in his face, because he touched your babies private place!

Very, very soon, my ordeal will be over; so prepare for the big fair!

Mom, thank you sooooo much for being there for me when I needed you most!

I am so fortunate to have a mom like you!

Big hug & kiss, happy birthday