Run As Fast As You Can

I keep turning off the television and Facebook and Twitter, trying to not know about those babies being buried in Connecticut, but I can’t. I feel consumed in guilt and turn it all back on, and try to catch up as fast as I can, saying I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I am so so sorry every time that father talks about his daughter in present and past tense at the same time.

I can’t close my eyes to it – I keep thinking that if I had been in the shoes of those mothers, I would never let anyone close their eyes to anything ever again. That’s too much pain for anyone to bear alone – I feel like I have some kind of obligation to try to share the hurt. I don’t know any of the moms or dads that lost their babies to this attack, but I feel like I have been donating half of my heart to them since Friday morning.

It is hard to look at our kids and know what to tell them. Bella came home yesterday wanting to know why – why did he do that? Was he mad at someone? She wanted to know how – how was he sick in his mind? What do people look like when they are that kind of sick in their mind? What was he wearing? Where was his mom the whole time?

It is impossible to find the right words or know which ones not to use.

She said if a gun man comes into my classroom, I am going to run around, as fast as I can, because it is hard to hit a moving target and she was proud of her plan. This goes down in her list of things she knows now, along with long division and the order of the colors of the rainbow. She said boys in her classroom said they wouldrush at the gun man and take him down and save everyone and be heros. It was hard to hide the horror I felt when I realized that my brain was saying while they are being heros, you run around as fast as you can, because moving targets are harder to hit. 

Someone on the news, when asked how we send our kids back to school without being afraid, said “We just take a deep breath and a leap of faith and hope for the best – we have to believe everything is going to be alright”. That’s the national answer. That’s the instructions we have been given. So that’s what I’ve been doing.

Today is Tuesday, only the second day back to school since it happened, and I sent my babies out the door again this morning, like I am supposed to. “Have a good day! Don’t lose your jacket! I love you!” ..run as fast as you can, please come home, be nice to everyone you see, please come home, please come home over and over till they come back home.

Wear Me Down

my edges get ripped off so often i forget how i fit back together
but i tape me back up and fold under the ink spots and add some new glue
so that you and you and you don’t see it wear me down.

my backbone gets scraped and skinned and it turns in ways it shouldn't
and my hands get so shaky they break things they said they wouldn't
but i run and run and run so that you wont see it wear me down.

and i sing and i play
sunshine songs and reindeer games
so that you and you and you and you will see me smile.

and i hide the things that crack me open and erase the marks that bleed
and bandage the spots that keep in the ugly
so that you and you and you and you wont see them wear me down.

depression romance

Close all the windows
and lock all the doors
turn all the switches and flip all the lights
that will help you pretend you’ll be safe through the night.

Stare at the ceiling and try to sleep
I’ll come from the shadows and nip at your feet.
Pretend you don’t hear me
sitting here at your ear
singing that song that you’re longing to hear.

Keep trying to turn your mouth into a smile
and acting as if 

you don’t feel me
keep seeing if laughing feels less like a chore
keep checking to see if you see me.

I’ll be just around every turn that you spin through
the faster you run, the sooner I’ll meet you.

Keeping moving slower and smoother toward dropping
slow down my love, there’s no shame in just stopping.
Just close your eyes and hand me your daytime,
we’ll slide comfortably into the infinite sidelines.

No need to be in there and out there and up there,
we’ll just sit quite steadily right here in the nowhere.
No one to force you from sick into well
No one will matter from under my spell.

this is me

This is me
patched just enough that the lights can come through
still choking on sharp broken pieces of you
this is me
repeating the startling poisonous pleadings
this is me ripping and running and fleeing
this is me slipping on moments and meanings
this is me knowing and keeping on being.

This is me
removed and replaced with the messy and missing
this is me reeling with messy misgivings
this is me
beating steady on the broken connections
this is me trying hard to detangle the lessons.

This is me
patched up and stitched back together
this is me picking up splinters and feathers
this is me looking for message and meaning
in make-believe stories of made-over messes.

This is me.
This is me.
Meaning to fix this.
This is me needing to unmix the madness 

and seal up the shots 

through the dripping and darkness.

This is me

needing you

to stop jumping on landmines
and crossing the muddied, black poisonous border lines.

This is me
begging you
to stop just for a minute
and look at the me that you wasted your time with.

This is me patient and stopped and in place
breathing 

and counting 

and watching you race
this is me
needing you
and you spinning in space.

disarray

I don’t enjoy this feverish fighting
your attention

always waning
pushing me in your direction
forcing you toward my attention

I don’t like the scars I’ve gathered
ripping roaring torn and bothered

I don’t want these wounds ripped open
seeping out all I’d had frozen.

I don’t see you weeping, wondering
I don’t see you spinning or swirling
I can’t see your breathing slowing
speeding stomping shrieking growing

I don’t want your scars reflecting
any of this pain I’m bleeding
I can’t see your cares colliding
with any part of me that’s seething

You won’t look at words and pictures
keep them locked in rotting fixtures
I won’t see you read these letters
You won’t see me getting better.

I can’t seem to feed this absence
seal its mouth with graceful patience
I can’t seem to play the right songs
without stumbling on brand new old wrongs.

I don’t like these doors left open
bringing in what I didn’t mind missing.

becoming an illusion

I sat there for years

being real
while you became an illusion

I kept my windows shuttered
locked and barred and under cover
while excusing your every intrusion.

I stayed there deficient and wishing
ignoring the light and the warmth I was missing
while you stood there

a welcome delusion.

I sat there for years 

beneath your inhibitions
smiling and seething

supporting your mission.

I stood there immobile and static
Stuck to your web of fictitious fabric.

I was standing there waiting to feel less subdued
while you lingered 

unseen and untrue.

nights like this

Its nights like this that I feel it slip

times like these that I stumble.

Its when the chaos

begins to subside

that it sneaks up on me

that my calm starts it slide.

It’s the places with silence

that are loudest to me.

It’s the times when you’re settling

that are unsettling to me.

When you smother me with order

and alphabetize my mess

when there’s no more urgent danger

no more brokenness

that’s when I start to loose my grip

that’s when my hold on me

starts to slip.