this whole place is one long poem about ghosts

The notion of
ghosts is
uncomfortable
sometimes, only
sometimes
though
because
there are things
like abuse and
neglect and
doubt
and
mistrust and pain
and how

how

does
the world keep on
spinning on
and on

how

do we go on
when this thing is still
around -- even if it
has disintegrated
turned to dust and slime, it's
in the air, it's
taking shape again, changing
into something else
smaller, maybe
not so ugly, maybe
not so scary or strong but
still

there. And

the same is true
of golden things, of
happy things now gone
now turned to dust and sunshine
water
and flowers
and air and stars and
memory
and changing
always changing
into something new, something
that can't be touched, can't be
caught or kept and yet
(thank goodness)
still it's

there.

mercy

One month.


Oh, mercy.


I am coming undone.

the end of my magical thinking

Oh, my dear, my darling girl. I realized last night that somewhere deep in the back of my mind, I've always kind of thought you might come back to me somehow; or I might wake up one day to find you'd never really left. But now suddenly I really understand that it's not true, that it will never be true -- and I can't think that anymore, even if I wanted to -- and it feels like I've lost you all over again.

unfinished

I am seized once again by the need to do something. Something meaningful, for my children. And once again, nothing seems sufficient -- because nothing is sufficient. Because no matter what I do, I can't shake the belief in my gut that they're simply not paying attention, our only time together is over and they're gone forever, and all my antics are an empty charade, and if it's only to placate myself then what the fuck is the point? Why not just give it up, just let it go?

My efforts feel ill-timed, amateur, self-indulgent. Look, Self! Look how much I love them! Look world, look! Look how I miss what I never really had! Look, baby! Look how I would have cared for you. Look at what you're missing! Why didn't you stay? Why was I not enough for you?




Ah.



There it is.




----------

* pause for tears *

----------



I tried to make a painting today, but I didn't finish it. And I feel defeated, I feel like I failed, because I couldn't finish this little 8x10 painting that I had envisioned in my head. And even though I know "real" paintings might take days and weeks and even years, I still feel like I failed. Maybe it's my long history of unfinished creative projects, haunting me. Clothes, blankets, stories, scripts, drawings, paintings, films, piano, guitar, original music... Oh, and babies.

I've still never quite finished a baby.

be still my heart

I can't stop thinking about how big he isn't.
I miss you, baby. I miss you so much I can hardly move.

if her life is beautiful

+

Head tilted back to receive the sunlight full on your face, drawn like a flower toward its life-giving heat. (Completely alone and yet clearly visible is as close to safe as you know you can be.) Sand, vast stretches of soft white sand, and the sounds of the ocean to slow the painful staccato beating of your heart; paradise, just as you'd always imagined it. So young and yet already so deeply tired. Wishing this moment could stretch and stretch into eternity, or that you might simply dissolve into this place, lose your shape and your face and your treacherous skin, and become a part of the sunlight and the sand; or find your voice, finally and forever, in the ceaseless roar of the ocean.

You know, any moment now, one of your parents will break your reverie -- and for no other reason but that they simply like to break things. They feel the need to remind you of your place in this world: a low place. A cold place, far from the sun.

----------

I wonder about this girl. I wonder if her life is beautiful. I wonder if she was happy, at the moment this photo was taken, or if she was wishing, like I did at her age, that she knew how to dissolve.

rainbows

It seems that many of the BLMs whose blogs I read are pregnant again; their little rainbow babies pushing out only newly slimmed tummies, showing up as glorious blobs of life in grainy black and white. And I am so, so happy for you, mamas; really I am.

Only... only I wish that it was my turn too, you know?
My turn looks awfully far away from here.