"eli, eli, lema sabachthani?"
i'm having trouble finding words today; instead of happiness, rest or peace, i am disheartened, discouraged, disillusioned and beneath all that restlessness.... i am angry. it is father's day, and so we send cards and grill steaks to celebrate our father figures, but what does that mean... connectedness, relationship, belonging? morality and courage and heroism? stability, strength, safety? i know no such connection and i have no such thread of identity; furthermore my attempts to write a better story have failed miserably, and i listen to the same goddamn skip in the broken record (over and over and over) as i watch my children coming up. i write these words for the father-failures that have filled not my soul with flowers, but my bottle with tears. the child in me is angry at the father who drove away under false pretenses and didn't return; the adolescent in me is angry for the new family that was (and is) worthy of his time and his affection and his presence; the naive wife in me still holds him responsible for the broken love that she believe(s/d) was all that she deserved; the mama in me watches my children and wonders how he could just (dis)miss those important moments and all of the priceless nuances in between. i am hurt and angry with you and with him and with all of them that have followed in your sacred steps: loving and leaving. you have seen my need and then walked away you have seen my tears and you didn't stay i have reached for you, but you always let go, and so he let go and now they always (unapologetically) let go... and now the grown up girl doesn't begin to know why she is broken and so full of your sins and when to build bridges instead of a fence; where she begins and wherever she ends and how to know love and how to just be friends; why did you leave me with no voice or defense and now your silence is the greatest offense. why wasn't i worth staying and when did you decide that they were the chosen and we were left outside? where grace met providence the girl realized that the father faithful had died. where are the keys that release yesterday? to let the girl become the woman that is no longer enslaved to the mud and the blood of the sins of a man? how is the heart healed so the orphaned child can believe in a father that wants to provide, to protect and keep promises and stand by her side, be the values she seeks and the mirror of her worth; as the image of heaven and the shelter of earth; does it even exist, this idea of love? all that she knows is she was never enough. (is she ever enough?) on this father's day i do not know how to commemorate the loss I feel for the fathers fiction that have come and gone; there is no roast in the oven and no quilt on the lawn; there will be no superfluous text and no disingenuous platitude of paternal accolades. i can only press into the sadness and continue the orphan's lonely journey on to the home she has yet to find; however i take hope in the blank pages and i color the margins with my own prisms of love and safety and courage; and i shall leave a trail of breadcrumbs so that when these little ones of my own someday go in search of their own father fantasies they perhaps have an easier path to walk than i. "eli, eli, lema sabachthani?" father, why have you forsaken me? maybe in eternity, i will then understand the human condition and the sovereign hand that writes hope and writes healing from the pages torn out and sings melodies of love over the requiem of doubt... let the sun ever rise on my dark, cloudy days and let comfort arise from the shadowy grace of the humanness of sadness and the kindness of the lathe that pushes me on toward the truer father faith.
1 Comment
i have dreamed of
you taking me back; you said i was your wildflower in the desert your light in the dark your hope in the sadness but you always ran for the desert danced in the darkness swam in your sadness until you drowned. i have plead that you would take me back hold me tight love me always but you have led me on read my song done me wrong. you said that I had stars in my eyes when i looked at you grace in my arms when i took to you faith in my heart when i forsook the truth but i didn't know that you had eyes for her when you looked at me memories of her when you took to me love for her when you said that you loved me. so now I am taking me back; the smell of my skin and the spark in my eyes, the light of my soul and the tireless tries to reach you, to heal you, to love you so well, to teach you the hope that would lessen your hell. i'm taking my flowers and taking my seeds i'm taking the lockets and taking the keys i'm taking the kindness and taking the peace i'm taking back all of the pieces of me. it's amazing how pain turned love into anger in the time that two tears fell from these blue eyes (and just like that she was gone). how dare you let me love you for so long while you masqueraded me as her i hate you for disrespecting me and taking advantage of my naive and stupid affection for you. who the fuck do you think you are? today is the day that i take me back; these are the last words i will ever write for you. ten saturdays left until
i drive the firstborn to a faraway school in a faraway city. ten saturdays left of early morning coffee and late night laughter; of outdoor adventures and inside jokes. she was born on a sunday, and we have since had nine hundred and fifty-eight weeks of learning and loving and leaving, and now there are but ten saturdays left. i’m never gonna love you less
even though you wanna forget the way our demons dance and undress but i’m never gonna love you less than i do right now. do you ever remember that i’ve seen your very soul in the flesh i’ve heard your midnight sins confessed but i’m never gonna love you less than i do right now. (right now) walk along the weakest wire throw around your darkest mire light up all your hottest fire but i’m never gonna love you less than i do right now. for your safe shelter in the day of unrest for your kind shoulder in life’s tangled mess for wisdom’s shadow and the friendship blessed i’m never gonna love you less than i do right now. so pour a tall one and drink the pain away so pull the shades and dream the night away so raise those fists and fight the breaking day ‘cause i’m never gonna love you less than i do right now. (right now) you will always have a candle lit in the window of my soul if you need a light to lead you back a flame to warm the cold the sacred space where old souls meet as the pacific sun drops down cause i’m never gonna love you less than i do right now. (right now) nobody told me.
I watch friends celebrate the two pink lines and rearrange their rooms and their lives for the induction of new life but nobody tells them that research on breathing and bradley methods is all well and good, preparation for dilation and delivery is useful and helpful, but what comes next and then next and then next after that? nobody told me what to expect when my child says that the world is not a safe place anymore, that she feels unloved and unwanted, that she wishes she were never born i hold her and comfort her with words that spill from an empty well. i watch families celebrate the milestones that give scrapbooks and yearbooks their stories to tell, the academic and athletic years the trophy and certificate years as children pass through the rippling and dancing creek of childhood, but nobody tells them about the heartbreak years and the deception years, the wading years and the drowning years; deep waters of fear and doubt, of stumbling feet and fumbling hearts of weakened resolve and the worrying furrows that burrow into your brow, your heavy-laden back, the breaking of your very being. nobody told me. these children, bone of my bone and blood of my soul; i pretend to carry the rod of discipline and the staff of truth while knowing that they can crush me with their words their wills the wily missteps of their invincible youth they can. they will. they do. nobody told me that the sleeplessness of infancy and the patience required of toddlers are but the footpaths we meander as we train for the great climb and eventual summit of everest (and each child is their very own mountain, making some of us triathletes as we simultaneously surmount multiple heights with diverse terrains amidst various weather systems)... why do we only share the pictures with happy faces and only tell the stories with happy endings? how many distended hearts suffer through the struggles of relationship alone because of pride and guilt and disappointment felt, hopes that have died and fears realized, for which we withdraw and withhold the broken years and the hurting years and the hidden truths about divergent choice, your child's (my child's!) intrinsic right to be wrong, to do wrong. we once chose, and so they do the same, but it is the missteps that mirror our own failures and regrets that pierce our hearts with the sharpest blade. and so another sun sets and i crawl into this lonely bed as tears fall from honest eyes (for the truth has a way of breaking our delusions and dilutions of how wistful and watery we wished life to be) and i am reminded that the world is not a safe place anymore, that these children (bone of my bone and blood of my soul!) concern themselves not with whether i feel unloved or unwanted, that some days, i too perhaps wish that i were never born. i long to be held and find a safe comfort, but tonight i find only empty words drawn from an empty well. i see your face and
i can’t not utter the truth with a gasp “god, i love you” i’ve thought it as you kissed me in the rain i knew it as i ran my fingers across the braille of your soul i’ve whispered it in your ear, and i’ve screamed it into your pillow, and you would give me that smile, and write me your poetry, and pull me in close to breathe me in, but i told you the last time and you looked down and away and hung up (why am i so fucked that i love you so recklessly) for you don’t love me anymore maybe you never did maybe it was just the way i look(ed) at you the way my words nest(ed) safely against the wounds of your soul the way my skin melt(ed) under your fingertips and now the silence screams that you’ve moved on and i must (MUST) find a way to unlove you yet i see your face and i can’t not utter the truth with a gasp “god, i still love you” it would be an act of kindness for you to just tell me that you’re done that you let go of me that you’ve unloved me because i can’t seem to let go of you, but this broken dance is breaking me i could have kissed you under the moonlight every evening of forever; i would have walked the fence every morning picking dandelions to put by the coffee pot; i wanted to carry your sacred stories for always as we wrote new ones for all of our together tomorrows but my key no longer fits the lock on your door, and now i must learn to unlove you. i’m sorry i wish i could be better right yours i wish this love didn't have me apologizing for who i am but ...i still do and so i must unlove you so that i may remember to love myself. (you will always be my favorite) i hate this broken world, but
i love the earthy aroma of the soil broken open in the spring i love the reflection of the sun waltzing across the atlantic waves breaking against the shore i love the chorus of the birds breaking the silence of night with their hopeful song. i hate this broken life, but i love the comfort of familiar music that wraps its melodies around the lonely heart i love the constant flow of the stream from its secret source, washing over carrying away (carrying on) i love the safety of baby kisses and toddler love that carry no sword or dagger. a steamy mist rises off the water as a smoky veil descends upon the mountains, the magic and the mystery of both the seen and unseen likewise, i must learn to love the clouds in my eyes that defuse the light the reasons why the path beyond... and so too i must carry on. i am so tired
(not exhausted, but weary) with sixty-three lists that keep me from doing what i need to do i want to do i was made to do. i am frustrated with these sixty-three emotions that overcome me, haunt me, hang me, but are not peace are not joy are not productivity are not satisfaction with what I was made to do (to be). i am buried beneath regret and doubt yesterday and tomorrow push and pull coffee and alcohol (all the same damn enemies, of each other, of my soul). some days (most days) death can not come soon enough my son’s fingers trace my lines like the yellow daffodils that line the dirty interstates sunlit silhouettes cast across morning walls across forest trails across his face and i touch his delicate skin wondering if these dancing specks of light are our candlelit glimpse across a a smoky room searching for the very face of God. i need him even when i am angry (with him) every breath is pollution in my lungs and every hope is framed in broken glass every smile is a reminder of love that will one day let go and every tear is fire on this aging human skin. i am bored with sixty-three simple minds and i am scornful of sixty-three churches that waste their words and waste my time i am lost among sixty-three wrong turns and i am sad and sober after sixty-three glasses of the king’s wine that never numb the pain never fill the emptiness never unravel the disconnect between this reality and home. i just want to go home but instead there are sixty-three doors without keys. i forget to forget the way
your hair smells and your eyes shine and your hand feels in mine. i forget to forget the way your skin tastes and your mouth tastes and your words taste as they dissolve in my spirit. i forget to forget the way your chest rises and falls our words exchanged finding their way into the pockets of our souls to bloom in some other unexpected moment. i forget to forget… but i forget to remember this wrenching in my chest when you love me and leave me to fade, to wither, to thirst for you with no relief. i forget to forget the happy ding-ding of love notes sent to my soul, your your gaze in my direction, and instead remember the disappointing weight of sadness as the silence then stretches out and stretches out (and stretches out). i forget to remember the tears and the loss my heart that you toss over your shoulder and onto the curb i forget to remember the break and the burn and why I should have learned to forget your blue eyes and your look-away smile to forget your still strength and your fears reconciled to forget the time that you said I was the best thing that ever happened to you that I was worthy of your time and your attention, and your affection. to forget the mirage of what seemed to true forget the belief in the man that i knew rhymed words and spilled ink are worth nothing, it seems, if the only gestures of love come in hashtags and links this time i must try to remember to forget this imaginary love, and instead remember to remember the way this always turns out for me. alone alone alone alone. alone, and reading spilled thoughts of someone i (maybe) knew and the (almost) love that you (perhaps) dreamed of you and me and the magic that never came to be. within the symbiotic space of
your heartbeat and mine all secrets are held all surety is found someday you will ask hard questions i will stumble on the answers and i will stammer on the truth but i will always be safe for you within the sacred waters of mother and son, we swim all worries washed away all wounds healed in the salty ebb and flow of grace someday you will wander from my side i will wipe my eyes and i will hold my tongue and my arms will always be open i will always be a haven for you within the tainted years of our human existence we love and we lose we change and we choose we build and we break we give and we take but you will always belong to me and i will always be yours you will always light my soul and i will always guard yours let me see you fly for you are free, and i will always ensure that your childhood sings the songs of hope and love and joy despite the shadows at the door when the truth becomes too much to bear i will carry it for you I will carry you through i will still carry you, my dear i will always carry you. within the symbiotic space of mother and son let me be a safe place for you. |
about the writer.“Words are only postage stamps delivering the object for you to unwrap” (George Bernard Shaw) past tense.
January 2019
categories. |