My mother, my new friend
"If you love me, please remind me to forget you." my mother said.
"I don't understated what you mean." I replied.
Mom held my hand and said, "This dementia I have is going to get worse.
I want you to remind me to forget you and free my mind from the struggle.
Sometimes not remembering is easier than trying to sort through the maze.
It may sound cold but I'm asking you to understand the dementia and accept
that we will be strangers. As new friends, we will come to know each other in
ways that we never were able to. The bad times between us will be erased from
my mind. The good times we've had will never be taken from us. Though I will
not remember the good times, we did have them. And so, my precious child,
if you love me, please remind me to forget you. Come to me as a wonderful
new person in my life. Don't make the day harder with your tears. Laugh
with me and walk with me. Sing with me and play B.I.N.G.O.
I ask you to love me enough to remind me to forget you. Darling, I ask this
of all my children. I do not want it this way. Dementia is unkind. Let's prepare
for it now and seal it in cement. Your "old" Mom is going away but your "new"
Mom is really looking forward to meeting you. (This story is dedicated to my
"new" Mom).
What Is True Love?
Why do we love? A love is stronger than difference, stronger than negativity, stronger than any other force on this earth. That is why love can be so dangerous: because nothing is more beautiful or more cruel.
If hurt, your wounds will eventually heal. Yes, there may be a scar, but that scar is the only one like it in existence. No one else experienced that feeling exactly the way you did. It is a part of you, an will forever grow as you grow.
Love has damaged me, but I do know; it has made me stronger than before.
Breathe.
I know.
The darkness– it's comforting.
The shadows have a way of making you succumb to them,
without ever uttering a sound.
This world?
It's ugly, I know.
Your heart?
It hurts, I know.
I know because I once swam headfirst into the blackness.
I, too, felt the cold smooth blade of a razor in my hand.
I wanted to jump.
I wanted to die.
There is something you should know,
before.. you know.
Think about how the sun feels on your skin,
while your lying in the grass.
Think about the way you can hear their hearts beating,
when you hug someone you love tightly.
Hold your breath.
Hear your pulse.
You. are. alive.
That is for a purpose.
Your heart is beating,
because you still have life to live.
You can see your breath against an icy window,
to show you that there is still breath within you to breathe.
Put down the blade.
Step back from the ledge.
Breathe.
Never...
"Never trust handsome men, Merideth," my mother gasped, clutching my hand tightly. "You don't know..." Beeeeeeep. The words died on her lips, and my mother's hand went limp in mine.
She'd been labeled as insane...
So when the suave, debonair gentleman dressed in black arrived at my doorstep, I trusted.
Beginnings
They say it's a hobby
Poetry is a pass time
It's not even art
Or genuine writing
It's just a few sentences strung together
It requires minimal thinking
Minuscule effort
So in essence poetry is fickle
Does not require much
Does not pay
One cannot use it as a means of income
It cannot sustain me
Or you
Or anybody for that matter
What they neglect to mention
Is that poetry is who I am
It is my reason for being
My smile
My sorrow
My comfort
Poetry is my being
Letter for my Ex Wife
Dear Regina,
This feud—this boiling hatred I feel for you and to think I was once convinced you were someone I'd die for. I really tried to be civil; to turn away from such a petty way, but every encounter with you grows more toxic and offensive. I should share with you the sick happiness it brought me when I saw the bags under your eyes and your smudged black makeup liner. I couldn't feel for you for I did not see a broken woman in the irises of your eyes. If anything it looked like strength or maybe it was boredom or perhaps an uneasy weariness with me and my games. In this the two of us could experience the last of us as if there never was an "us." The thing that gets me most is how you actually fucking think I don't see what you're doing. I'll admit it, it is a well played position. Playing the victim meanwhile feeding on all the empathy of others. Truly you are a vampire of the soul. I would know—remember? I don't hate you. I just find it sad that nothing can reach you anymore, but your own egocentricity. Any sincere move on my part is bogged down in your analytical defense till you find fault were there is no fault to be found and the whole gesture is crushed. I tried playing the martyr for us to no avail. Then my eyes were opened to the grotesque nature of what you were doing. I was no martyr but a damn moth and you the black widow. I helplessly caught in your web. Your mercilessly calculated strikes sinking fangs deep injecting neurotoxins paralyzing all my struggles. How the poison rotted my insides out only so you could patiently wait to slurp up the remains leaving a petrified useless shell of the man I once was—To hell with that! Oh! Regina, thou art a villain! No! Indeed there is no love to miss here; I doubt even if there was love in the first place. Yet a far off memory does cry out to me asking, "Are we but monsters that preyed upon each others' fears and faiths with unscabbard sabers? Are we true love's lovers like Adam and Eve only to betray another as Cain and Abel?" And truthfully I don't answer them. Besides such weak thoughts have no business here anymore. For this is an ugly business; this is survival of the fittest and if I am to go down I will drag you with me, all the way to the bottom.
Sincerely,
Fuck You.