a personal history of terrible things (not for the feint of heart).

last night, my husband came home later than i expected, shortly after i'd begun to worry. i spoke to my upstairs neighbor, trying to figure what to do. i called the police to ask about accidents. when he walked through the door as i was talking to the woman from upstairs, i excused my worry, apologized, and explained that we, or rather i, am prone to tragic accidents, and i thus have it in my head that bad things might seep in. these days i have been very lonely. jon has been working every day until 10 pm, leaving me alone to care for the children, exhausted by the heat, by their incessant complaint, the whining, the need to drive all over acquiring things, keeping them busy. i feel out of touch. i feel the absence of someone to speak to, to confess my life and process all my thoughts. i feel alone in my house, its empty rooms echoing when the children play quietly or nap. and this morning upon consideration of my fear of the accidental, i went down the list again, felt the weight of all the terrible things i have witnessed, and as usual simultaneously dismissed and invalidated the terror as nothing compared to the lives of others. it has been my friends who have dealt with terrible things lately, the people closest to me feeling the fear. my best friend suddenly lost her mother, which breaks a small part of my own heart. another friend sustained a loss i dare not even speak about. the terror is all around me. i feel it closing in amidst the silence and the echo of wood; the summer heat and humidity. i walk around with the sense that even more horrible things are in store for me, as if it were already written. i anticipate the loss of my husband like it were bound to happen. and when i do, i clutch my chest and sob whole-heartedly.

i decided to compile the actual events that have left me immovably stunned and terrified, for what reason i know not. i suppose it is to sit with it. it is a meditation. it is to consider my grief once more.

my son's first surgery, when he couldn't breathe afterward and was retracting very badly and the nurses tortured him by trying to suck blood out of his nose, which proved entirely unnecessary. eventually, they stuck a nipple in his mouth with the tip clipped off so he could breathe:
my son's second surgery when he became dehydrated and they poked him 5 times trying to find a vein, eventually landing his iv in his head:

the truck accident when i was 5 months pregnant with son #2, wherein a semi fell out of the sky and landed on my car:

the incident with the casserole dish, where i sliced through 4 tendons and severed a nerve in my wrist, trying to wash the dishes:
not pictured: jon failing the oral portion of his comprehensive exams for his phd.

it is nice to be appreciated, when it comes. it takes me off guard these days. i used to have such ego about my writing. i still understand that i write well, but feel so inadequate in terms of my rate of production that i hardly feel like a real or decent writer. i can make all the promises to myself that i want about writing more or writing everyday, but it still doesn't come. i have to take the small steps, make tiny goals in order to achieve anything at all.

my days are already so chock full of so much to do. i am running around in circles, trying desperately to do everything to be done, searching up and down, paying bills, running errands, zoning out in front of the computer. it takes such time to move. especially with small children - my own personal two-bodied demolition crew. i move frantically trying to get them out of the house, trying to post at my local board, trying to eat and do laundry. i plan things and go to meetings.

i am at this moment on the brink of joining the food co-op board, which will require that i meet once a month with the others to plan and discuss. as though i really needed more to do. i clean my house, knit, drink beer in the late nights when everyone is asleep.

my whole life these days is doing. what will happen to me when it is all done? i am trying to find a future in the cracks between activities in order to ensure that i am not lonely and languishing years from now when my eggs have fled the nest. i am attempting to plan out a memoir and a novel, finish a chap book of my february poems, write each monthly co-op newsletter, volunteer my time in the hopes that one day what i do can define me in a career. i create cards and bags, plan to finish the quilt one day, hope that i might sell something at some point, enough to furnish the rent should i need to. it is not likely to happen, but i have big dreams nonetheless. or perhaps they're small dreams.

i have always been excessively good at poo-pooing my ambitions, noting their improbability. it makes me so proud of my sisters and my husband to see them doing what they dream. i have far too many interests in too many directions to do much of anything at all. i become paralyzed by possibility. it is quite the lousy lot. i should, in fact, know better. but i don't really know what i want. i want too much. i want everything. i want nothing more than what i've got. i am where i planned to be. or so it would seem. perhaps this was the path of least resistance and it simply fit me well. i don't know. it is what it is. i do what i do.

i attempt to feign knowledge of the future, but really i'm just attempting to put anything in a place where a career might land that i may have something to put on a resume. at the same time, i have no interest in forming a career. i can rationalize all this crazy talk with this idea that what i do is explore my world and try things out, making me a more balanced, well-rounded, experienced person in the long run, making life my major and participating in communal systems my career.

and then tonight i was asked to come to a literary group after some folks liked my poems. it has been so long since i'd been to a poetry reading. this one was quite nice, filled with older people with quiet, non-slam poetry filled with meaning and beautiful imagery and exquisite language. i felt at home with my writing, like i belonged, like i was on par. and then the compliment. i hadn't the heart to tell her that there is no way i can participate in one more thing these days, my plate is already so so full. already there is hardly time to sit and think or to put those thoughts in the blog.

i had always intended this to be more interesting in terms of the writing than a regular blog, but i think i've fucked it up this go round and the incessant paragraph is probably more than overwhelming. perhaps it is time to break it up. there. i've done it, though i'm terrible at paragraphs.

long ago, i had a point. i had wanted to talk about all my confusion these days, how i feel this gap between my husband and i, how i almost think i'm making it up. but i forgot and didn't know how to get there anyway. i am too busy doing to think too much. i am too busy doing to understand the meaning in my life or to feel connected. i am out the door.

it is the thing driving me in circles and filling up my brain, weighing on my shoulders. it is the flow out of pockets, and deep in the crevices of my bank account. i account for it with the pangs in my heart, but fears creep in and uncertainty rises to the surface. i am waiting for things to be better, for the world to look brighter, the days to be warmer. i am sick to death of snow. i am entirely too full of chocolate and it no longer comforts me. the wet winter and all this darkness is wearing on me. the children are tired and have been cooped up for too long now. they go crazy, scream and whine all day. they need freedom too. i want nothing more than to be comfortable and free from worry. i have done the necessary time, i am convinced of it. this has been enough and i am done with wringing my hands attempting to determine the appropriate course of action when so many may do, but none will be the entire solution. i attempt to visualize great rivers of money flowing at me, fleshing out my cheeks, rounding me and fulfilling the needs of the family. i imagine us free from worry - i see me smiling and contentedly going about my life, my general struggle with the atrocities of circumstance that i've unwillingly been a part of. i envision me walking down the street pulling the boys in the wagon. is it only warm air that i long for? is it simply summer that will fulfill my fantasies? every year, it seems, this happens. there is the long freak out and the creeping discontent with the way things are. i am a full bud, waiting. i am in need of the overspill, the pouring into spring, into sandal wearing and sleeveless dresses. i am chilled and my hands ache from all my fretting. it is high time i abandon the blankets, no longer need the layers to keep me calm and comfortable. i need ease and lightness. i wish only for freedom from anxiety. i want to stop this soulful weeping. this has gone on long enough.

in need of something new, i long for babies when i see babies, long for puppies when i hear talk of puppies, randomly pick up an application to run for the co-op board. the moment i think logically, however, i remember why i have no interest in puppies, why i have my fill of children, and why my time is all spent up and there's none left to be on a board. there is something churning in my belly though, flipping my eyes from here to there looking for something to long for. what is it that i need? what is it that i want? what is it that i can actually do? i don't even know how to approach the questions - clearly - let alone find the answers. what do i want? what do i want? i pick at the pretzels, imagine myself doodling the words, scrolling pen marks all about a page, searching in spirals and flowers and doodled stars and images of dna that i always draw for an answer, for the mystical revelation. where is it? in my skin? in this world, this life, this neighborhood and city? is there something to be done? some direction to be pointed in? should i plan out my whole life or merely change the colors of the walls? i was listening to the npr station today and this woman was giving a press conference, it seemed, about women and sports and all her volunteering and the things she's involved in - ending poverty and whatnot - and i thought how nice it might be to become really so involved in everything that i believe in so as to be on boards and make real change and go to africa to see the things that others do not see, to not just sob at news stories and choke up every time i read a fucking magazine. i thought how good it might be to dedicate a life to fighting poverty, to have the energy and the resources to actually do something like that. but i don't know how that works. clearly, this woman, and george clooney, who i spent the time in the fluido in occupational therapy reading about, have the sort of resources to be on the elton john aids board or to work the un security counsel about its approach to saving darfur. last week i thought that maybe instead of having a baby we could bring a sudanese refugee into our home just like in i heart huckabees, only without the bullshit christian crap and all the nonsense spewed down his/her throat about how great sprawl and capitalism are, but merely a job and a place to live and food to eat and friendship and honesty. or maybe that's a ridiculous idea because look at us - we have no money, no means to bring a refugee into our home. we have only photoshop and questions and endless student loan debt. i think all the ridiculous things, spark crazed notions while driving in the car, search the bottom of my glass of water for clarity in my personal life. what is it? what is this? is it spring? turning twenty-eight? the silence of my partner, the screaming of my children, the snot poured down their faces? is this a searching out of myself from desperation or boredom? is it anxiety about the summer, the endless months looming ahead with no income, the barren lands of debt and worry? is it a searching to escape the weight of all this worry, a way to immerse myself in something as means of distraction? why is it that i must ask the questions of myself? why is it that i cannot look into my head and see plainly where my fears and worries and desires come from? i was reading cunt and thinking of cuntfear and how women fight one another needlessly and realizing truthfully that every woman i judge has something that i fear in myself - naiveté, arrogance, denial, laziness, annoying hyperactivity. i can face myself and know this - why can i not peer into the pool of other thoughts and know their source? what is it that i am missing? what am i attempting to avoid in finding the answers? is this simply fraught with complexity? is there nothing there beyond an urge, a feeling? what is this? why the anxiety? why can i not overcome this by way of information and exploration? i cannot learn my way out of my emotional confusion. i imagine myself writing, whittling down and down to a solution, of sorts; to a plan at the very least. perhaps all that is in order is making a list. or maybe having a long conversation with my husband, seeing if he can shed any light at all on what is happening here. he did seem opposed to the child, puppy, and co-op board ideas, so i suppose those are out. painting the house is going to happen anyway. i've been purging in hopes to free myself of all the weight of my household, getting ready for spring and the task of the treasure map (the setting out of all desires for myself for the year in collage form). i am digging through my life in search for what i want. and i just do not know at all what it is.

doing, doing, all day long. the self-challenge to write twenty-eight poems in february morphed into the self-challenge to sew and knit lots and lots in march. the week-long break at my mother's house resulted in the initiative to do everything on the to-do list (current and long-forgotten, present and long-term) in order to live come the spring. come spring and summer i pledge to write, to knit, to walk, to visit many places, explore the heights of rocky river again with newly-hiking two-year-old, witness the bulbs sprung open, the muddy puddles ready for jumping, the sandbox full of broken, winter-rotted toys, vacationing, visiting with friends, painting, stroll the street fair thursdays in coventry, prepare the midnight wizard meeting, brainstorm ideas for fall, brainstorm thoughts on a health collective, brainstorm and invent the method out of mommy-madness, and finish the creative projects long on the table. i am emptying closets, on the phone to lawyers and chiropractors, writing articles for magazines, creating chapbooks and newsletters, stitching diaper bags, knitting blue-on-blue checkerboarded dishcloths, checking off lists, storming theoretical castles. i am in the midst, in a swirl of activity, buzzed with accomplishments and extra-strong ethiopian coffee. i am not nice, per se, but most truly me. i advise that carpet is in fact toxic and thus suitable for hatred. i purchase things beyond my reach, but balance well the bank account. i watch movies and do not sleep enough. the thunder is pounding, the basement is wet, i seek to sleep, but move to type, to sate the hunger of dear, unknown, comment-less readers. the ice cream is empty. i've done well to begin to meet the resolutions i set forth for myself. my hand is much better; much better than expected. my thoughts for nanowrimo two-thousand-seven are brewing and beginning. my weight creeps upward. today i raised my heartbeat for a good twenty minutes and made my children happy to boot. i celebrate the successes and mourn the facts of my deficit health, my fears of the future, but do not dwell. i move onward. i go.

verse occurs

it happens that i am looking at my fingernails,
turning my head around,
humming to myself,
rubbing my hands through my hair and mussing it,
squinting and rubbing my head, urging the headache out,

it happens that i am language-less,
that i am attempting to do what i committed myself to,
but without a map,
without a guide,
and my steps become slow and my lips bitten
in search for a distraction,
for a method of escape

it happens that often there are many other requirements:
pajamas to be pulled on,
teeth brushed,
stories read,
tears wiped and tea made
laundry washed and folded and put away

it happens that there is always something else besides a dedication to writing
there is always work to do
and things to scrub
the poetry can always wait

it happens that in the waiting i live the life i write
and find the words folded amidst the towels
find the alliteration scrubbed in the grout of the bathroom tiles
recover the metaphors in the taking of pills,
the washing of dishes
i need not look around and turn my head too far
to find the meaning i instill in myself
and the method with which to articulate it.

absurdity

the absurd visits me
in decided non-hilarity
it is unfunny
it sits beside me on the bus,
hollow-cheeked
and sunken-lids
swallows hard with dry mouth
thin frail hands clutch dirty balls of tissues

the absurd talks in cackle voice
of webbed fingers
and dog faced children
whispers curses
and bites off the skin around its nails all the while

the absurd licks the cracked, white-powdered corners of its mouth
talks rapidly and unendingly
fidgets its fingers
rustles its feet
tells stories that sound of graveyards
and empty schoolyards
swings swaying in a late-fall chill like the intro to a horror film

the absurd's stories are filled with dark characters
and tragic characters
pussy stomach tubes
piss-soaked wheelchairs, wheels rusted,
the tenebrosity of old age and illness,

it is the spiral out of youth without the wisdom of age,
meaning never found, few truths uncovered,
it will end as it all began
it is the irrational step of a measured existence,
a futility in bloodflow.

yet to do

lists uncoil
at the touch of my fingertips
and the urge of my memory.
the mind wanders about rooms,
spreads the tongue about the mouth,
licking the lips for the taste of words,
the familiar spurred reminded requirement
eyes flash open,
memory installed,
the spark plugged appropriately,
the outlet let in proper positioning
and all my dreams
reduced to the pathetic eagerness of domestic minutiae.

regarding reiki

the magnet of my memory
pulls hands
toward and out my heart,
thumps trembles, noises,
and adolescent brain-addled endeavors

this moment shudders me,
frees blood for flowing,
the energy courses,
finds the path and plows it open,
something occurs to negate the numbness
something here interrupts the blockage
and i feel again,
sense the texture of my corduroy clothing
palm the ridges
ply the uneven winter woolens

the water poured beneath my skin
plumps it ready for the leveling of postures
prepares me for the regulation of each heartbeat
each moonbeam caught in the glass of my eye
becomes the sudden stillness
that standardizes my thought and action
balances me for new beginnings
rebirths me thinking and feeling,
the hands and body freed
from the constraints of complaint
and time steadily unearthed me
from the ill-kept tempo of circumstance.

painting the living room

the shade of paint he announces
excites me so,
i feel unreasonable
it is rare that something so mundane
as the tone of a pear
would make me smile
and continue to lighten
my face
each time i think of the matter again.

mended skin

the scars on me,
your yellow shine,
expanded and swollen
across the plain pale flesh
that regularly encases me

the scars on my brain and heart,
the imprints and impressions
left behind by arguments
by breakups
by months gone by without illumination,
without even the flash of lightening
to expose a hint of hope amidst the darkness

scars grow up the trunk of me
from my toes to the tip of my crown,
stretch as vines around me,
at moments smothering and overwhelming
sprouted down my throat
and to the pit of my belly

these marks scrawled upon me
smoothed over everything that pained me,
that broke me
and finally healed me,
holding me stiffly in its
husk-hardened embrace.

block

i can’t dig into the thoughts,
i can’t find the way into myself
to see the words form
across the back of my skull
to feel my mood shift
and the shiver echo over the cold of my skin
i can’t get in
i can’t remember the code
or find the hidden latch
my secret handshake has gone,
escaped the memory of my hands
the thoughts do not form
the words do not fit
my poetry unravels before it’s born
ends abruptly
and doesn’t answer when i call.

writing twenty-eight poems

the subtle churn of monotony
the focus of my symphony,
the mundane transposed against infinity:
the composition of this poetry.

treasure mapped

wilted lenses drip puddles
of hidden agonies
the truth is not here
it rests behind the skin of you
my teeth tightened
my wounds remain raised to the air
flesh peeled back, welcoming
i feel the shudder crept spineward,
unearthed fear and sorrow,
surely thicker than the moonlight.

the joys were not depended
the ordered not accounted
subtle pieces pasted
in obvious retarded kitchen wall glory
the tale of these sins
departed for witness
and all i am
is a faith-based mock-up,
a joke of excerpts and excuses for serendipitous exchanges
my hands emptied of responsibility
from the sum of this existence.

astonishment at the intersection of reality and intention

it seems, at times,
not possible
that i could be responsible for this existence
that i am the adult in this situation

it seems futile to assume
that i would not
should not
be the one screaming my head off,
my emotional well being sprung a leak
and steam pouring through in rageful glaring
and guttural shouting

it seems unreasonable
that i should check myself
become aware of my surroundings
sustain the worldly order
and let the abuses of all others slide
in their forgetful sock-thrown-aside manner
(that that should, in my mind, constitute abuse is equally asinine).

and where do i step over the line between resentment and guilt?
where is it?
i do not ever see it,
yet sense its immenseness in its indistinctness
its significance shadows its slenderness
it is there,
yet immeasurable.

i travel all about
in the emotional war-zones of my house
know not how to handle it
know not how not to.
my mind can see
but my heart is blind
i am selfish
and i wear on everything
leaving the impression of my sighs,
indentations of my rolled eyes and bit lips
in the carpet
and the furniture
and all over the faces of my spouse and children.

sunday

my limbs do not lift
my senses fail
my head sits in a cloud,
eyelids sunk

the day is slow-going agony,
no amount of caffeine propels me

the stillness of my body belies the movement of this world
my mind stirs in irritation
frustration with the dumbness of aching hands
that do not do
bloated numb fingers
all thumbs
thick logs attempting needlework

the shudder in me
is a shifting tension,
rising to meet my surfaces,
with no explosion,
no sudden sound,
just a gurgling,
and a growl
announcing this affliction,
this paralysis,
as reasoning enough to leave me be.

knitting sebastian’s scarf

fire twisted round bamboo stakes
tiny v’s unfurling,
lengthening into warmth for baby boy’s throat
a mode to hold the heat in
with all the elements of embers:
red, pink, orange, a sparkling hint of gold
to stave off the icy blue hues of this frozen landscape
to keep out ten below gusts
which shake and shiver him
his pinkened cheeks and nose
dried and dusty
his nostrils swelling watery protection
and mamas hands there to shelter him
when she herself is not.

friday neuromuscular electrical stimulation

electro amputation
muscle re-education
spasm, flex, atrophy
what's the next catastrophe?

father

your canned salmon stunk up the whole of the kitchen
darling’s veganness could not sustain it
he plugged his nose and clenched his teeth in fury
but luckily settled to leave you with the children
and scuttle up the middle of the icy street
to the japanese restaurant
to devour seaweed salad and miso soup,
sucking down hot tea in ceramic cups
to stave off the frigidness of blizzarded valentine’s.