Tag Archives: poetry

The Chosen

Full moon rises outside the window
Two deadweight bodies radiating body heat
Legs across mine
Claiming me as their own even in sleep
I don’t mind
I have been theirs since the moment I could finally hold them in my arms instead of vaguely curse at them to get the fuck out of me

Tension rises outside the door
Voices raised as emotions are expressed
Two people learning how to love each other again
How to belong to each other
And themselves
I don’t mind
I have been there, walked those exact steps, been overcome and overwhelmed and desperate
And came out the other side with more love than I ever believed possible

Words rise inside of me
Always wanting to get out
Past my tied tongue and my half open eyes and stiff fingers they demand release
I don’t mind
Racing across the page they are the wind in my sails
Pulling the weight from my heart and pouring it on the page they are my anchor
They are my breath in good times and bad

We rise out of expectations
Insisting on making our own way
Laying down the burdens of antiquated ideals
Ignoring the calls for self sacrifice from the same lips that call us entitled
I love him I love her they love me we love
And I don’t mind
The side eye when I introduce my partnerS
Call myself a witch
Or hear my child drop the f bomb at story time
Because at the end, when I walk into the light again, I will never wonder what my life would have been like if I had chosen it instead of accepted what I was given

Which of us is piglet?

Tonight

driving the distance between our homes

having exchanged pie for curry

for just a moment

I lived in the hundred acre wood

and nothing was complicated

and life was a simple, beautiful pure truth

spoken by a small child, saying

“because she’s one of your very best friends”

and me, tearing up a little bit from being able to say

“Yea, buddy, she really is.”

Enough. Enough now.

In life you raged

those you claimed to love bore your handprints

and cursed you in your final breath

your chains still rattle

your mothers tears echo across generations

haunting us all

your son’s greatest achievement in life

was being the opposite of you

beloved by his children

cherished in life and mourned in death

his peace rankles you still

Enough. I hear you. Your pain is acknowledged.

Your cry for help heard. For your son’s sake, for my father’s sake,

I will help you. I will give you a final voice,

I will hold you one last time, like a mother,

and sing softly that everything is going to be okay, and you are loved.

I will listen to your mother, and your mother’s mother.

I will listen to her father and all those who came before,

I will free them all. The chains will fall. You will be together.

Enough. Enough now.

No longer will your anger burn through our veins, your lack of control assault our emotions, your pain roar through our breath. Enough now.

Twenty years now you have yelled into the abyss. Enough now.

Let us do it together.

I will raise you up. I will pray for you. I will give you an offering to sustain you.

You are not alone. Not anymore.

Enough. Enough now.