You said it but I heard your hesitation

I saw you on and off all night

I saw you in the early morning

Now you are nowhere in sight

Maybe it is a test to see if I will fall

Do you think I am desperate

I just let these thoughts go wild

My heart and my mind battle it all

I don't understand this thing we do

Back and forth I love you or not

I wish I knew if you think of me too

Pretending there is nothing here

Now I'm not waiting for you call

Not even sure I will answer at all

Papa, my heart can't believe

That you passed on.

The most important man

in my life since I was born.

My father was young

and did the best he could.

But you stepped to the plate

and made sure that I was good.

My children got to know

how good it was to be your

great grand.

They had a chance to appreciate

their Papa, a great man.

Being the only girl by my dad was

Always tough.

Until ten years ago, being the only granddaughter was more than enough.

But I always felt special in your eyes.

Even though I wasn't one of the guys.

But we will mourn the same and I will never forget.

The love that you gave me

With no regrets.

I sent a message to God to please honor you with your wings.

So that you can appear

as my Angel in everything .

Please PaPa hug my grandma and that father of mine.

Please know that I love y'all

with a heavy heart until next time.

***I wrote this poem for my daughter whom recently lost her grandfather on her dad's side, lost her dad last year, and lost her grandmother the year before that. She was too upset to write it, so I wrote it for her.

I listened to the radio~

Thought I was bulletproof,

cool in that secondhand haze.

Years later~ghost voices crawl in:

“They were never worth the noise.”

Doubt needles my memory~

Was it mine, or someone else’s choice?

Rearview snapshots~

half-smile, half-lie.

I can’t name the moment

I started living someone else’s life.

Don’t bring her back~

don’t drag her through.

Those fragments still

split me right in two.

Was it stolen? Was it mine?

Hell if I know that track.

Don’t bring her back~

I’m not going back.

Found the disc at the wash~

no name, no claim, no case.

Could’ve been a friend’s,

could’ve been someone I never faced.

Left in the static~

Left behind, dust in the sun.

I took it home like a secret,

not sure what I’d done.

I was a child

in borrowed skin~

a wife in a house

that kept the light from getting in.

Don’t bring her back~

don’t drag her through.

Those fragments still

split me right in two.

Was it stolen? Was it mine?

I can’t retrace that track.

Don’t bring her back~

I’m not going back.

Rich man’s chains~money unused.

Paid in silence,

paid in how I moved.

Heart wrapped tight~

too safe to breathe.

Searching for light

with my hands up my sleeves.

Don’t bring her back~

don’t pull me under.

These echoes still

split me wide as thunder.

Was it borrowed? Was it mine?

Don’t ask me to unpack.

Don’t bring her back~

I’m not going back.

Clouds drift, towns fade.

The reel keeps spinning.

Rub my eyes~shake my head.

Don’t bring her back.

~Jessi #reminders #memories #life #thoughts

Strange, isn’t it?

When asked what I had for lunch,

or what you told me last night

after I asked about your day,

or what day that you told me

to keep open next week, I

struggle

to remember.

Just short-term?

No, the problem runs deeper.

I used to recall without hesitation

the endearing name you called me

long ago when I asked you to spend

your life with me, but now I

fumble

to remember.

But why is it

that I can recount with the speed

of a default setting on a computer

an insult or dirty deed that was

aimed at me long ago or yesterday?

No matter how blatant or how

subtle,

I remember.

Strange, isn’t it?

A friend called my checkered memory

the “old letter to the editor” syndrome:

The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

We do not download the attaboys

or kindnesses, but fixate on the

cudgel

to remember.

Frustrating, isn’t it?

Why can’t I just replace any of the

bad recollections with pleasant ones?

Why is the dark side barking at the

door of my mind, wanting to go out?

Why does my light side have to be so

humble

to remember?

On every holiday or birthday, mine or others, I wish always it seems for the same thing, or at least, since maturing. I no longer want to cure the condition we all share.

You know, "Life," though there was a time that I would have said I wished for peace, thinking how it should be a cure-all for war, pestilence, disease, general stupidity, and related suffering.

Then I slowly, painfully recognized that I didn't want to live without fight.

I want to grapple with problems. I want to overcome challenges in faith and possibility, physically and emotionally.

And accordingly, I sign my greeting cards with that dual edged wish:

Here's to a Creative Year.

Creativity, loved

bled, and bloody

left me,

autumnal winds

stretching out

my draft deafening door,

swinging low

with lament:

...you used us

like a drug,

and now

we're fully wasted...

useless body! and breath what

could have been made, cohesive

for consumptive ritual,

you slaughtered

and butchered--!

with Life seeping out

its shell casing, housing

this bullet, aimed falsely

in vigilance, of a second helping

...eating is nonsensical

...and sleep is a wake

for grieving demons,

their gnashing of teeth

foretold

in Revelations!

for those who long buried

with primitive spade and hatchet

the half-spent core, reactive

that which sprouted fevered

exponential saplings, of temptation

blotched green and gold and red...

fading to russet,

brittle and deadening...

an ache I'd hope to feel again

shedding this blanket of snow