and it was July the twelfth in two thousand and three and all the things in between

Like You never ignore those who cry out to you for help. Like You hold together oil and water for eleven plus years. Like you heal the misguided thinking of a very very young wife and mother. Like a running joke. Like a story too haphazard and disconnected to be cohesive and true. Like night and day. Still trying to mold and mix and shape them together to make one beautiful song. Like never quite finding balance. Like the fear that forces me back down the ladder to the high dive. Freezes me on solid branch perched above river. Like being an alien wanting to love a human. But trying. Always trying. Being thrust out and away to figure things out alone and with the still small voice. Like the pain of only being able to be held naked and vulnerable by a pure God embrace. Then moving on. Still moving on. Though wounds of slights still sting. Though the loneliness still separates. Though nothing, no not one thing, has come to us easily. And it's difficult grueling hard work. Though every minute is filled with a one with a need and sleeping alone beside you is a heavy weight on chest. Still there will be an effort to grow, somehow, to be one. One whole life out of two alien lovers. Dealt difficult hands. Pushing on to be okay with being okay. Pushing past the doubt and the worry. Like one small step forward and three steps back. Eleven years of working. Trying to talk though we speak each a unique and unintelligible  language. Like pushing to have an identity though all I am at times is wrapped up in you. Like not shutting out myself just to satisfy a shallow you. Like not shutting you out to protect a defiant me. But the hope of the good parts and the fruit of hard labors of love. The hope of one day fitting together as others enraptured in decades of love. That hope pushes walk forward to better times. Better times of you being you and me looking at you with all love and affection where staunch defensive me simply lets in you. And maybe that though all things feel at times a loss, that all things feel at times too daunting a thing to conquer, that maybe the three-fold cord will prove to bear fruit and bring apparently joined two into one. For smiling eyes and loving friendship. To unmentionable intimacy. To live beside, between, and together. To accept lightheartedly the oddity of us three. Unique beyond the minds of the reasonable. Confused and confounded at the socially acceptable. But standing still. Growing still. Developing on and maturing to grace. To be deeply in love. His perfect encompassing I AM. That we stand still unbroken in pieces, a miracle I marvel at. Over a decade of persistence in accomplishment to marvel at. Doing everything to do nothing but to allow generous Creator to take the fault and the blame. Leave to Him to be Himself. Mediating frustration code red. Stubbornly not to quit. Stubbornly not to walk out and away and out of. Though defenses push me there. Him to fix it. Him to smooth over. Miraculously answer deep calls in the night from depth of my deep. To answer and speak and move because He hears. He cares and He counts me worthy of all of Him. That I see, still in doubt and still unbelieving, that to fall deep into perfect Love's deep is to soften up to you and mend human slights. That I see that to allow You to love a broken pitiful me is to open up, yet again, to love with full power my also broken other half. That piece crucial and fractured. Just acceptable enough. To see Holy One's love and acceptance of heart. To sit in sweet peace of all that is ours out of control. That crazy life lived, began, and started too young might yet be a marvel to cherish and defend. And I blink and eleven years and four children have built us a kingdom. And willing unwilling we thrive, and unrestricted to thrive. And simple we two become a magical holy. And that you live daily at my side and me to sit daily in your presence transforms into a miraculous thing. And to sit and hold gaze with you a cutting force moving. That those years sit between us. That those children wander under foot and now almost at height. A wonder in speckled green alien eyes.

and the na...cy and the ch....ea and the me....an and the me and the then and the now

And married at twenty.
And baby at twenty one.
And another in twenty one months.
And another two years later.
Maybe that's when her oneness was completed.
Six, maybe seven years after vows.



After hours.
In the irrelevant darkness spread between bedroom walls
Cockeyed passers by disregarding voiced pain
voiced agony
voiced loneliness
Meddlesome naysayers and bandage quips
overachieving in laws and unattainable standards
whose standards?
Mediocre marriage between mediocre bedsheets
sagging now unrecognizable milk producing nurturer

spread open wide, dear submissive
open to act and do and be and act until quality feeling fills the sheets
Fills the void
the lie of the better
the lie of the soapbox

irrelevant naysayer held reverently above impractical practicality
now gray
now white
now gray
now white

boxed in
in boxed house
manufactured to house life and smiles and cooking and eating and love making

seclusion breeds opportunity

opportunity to question
opportunity to run
run far
run far
to the backwards had been
revolting not now been
dear submissive tempted now to run
run from the faith
run from the gray now white now gray now white

now disqualified with quips of knowing better than thou
better than the brokenness
better than the now
why ask how
dear submissive
dear seclusive
elusive reclusive diabolical questioner of the faith
questioner of the emphatic

realistically seeing the reality of the being in the madness never seeing

but the brow and the beating
and the meeting of the quipping and whipping mental furor into mad fury
fury at self
fury at self
at elusive submissive
elusive submissive at high cost of life

snatched away laughter
hope of respectability
hope of in-loving kindness
in love-ability
ability
utility

utilitarian though you seem to not be the backhanded equalizer suppressing madness temper

Tempted to cope
tempted to flee backwards to inexplicable ridiculous radical

hold me down longer
loving sad view
hold me down harder

run from the now white now gray
make fun with the freedom of the boxed in box maker
laughter taker
for small money maker

eunuch drone worker
enabling free for frees sake
for sayings sake
for others knowing sake

high calling to poverty ignoring true need unfulfilling unequally maker
marriage breaker
oneness breaker
promise breaker
fail
fail
fail

quiet in the friday

I'm afraid. I'm afraid of a lot of things. I'm afraid of freedom.
car accidents
rapists
dogs
sharks
men
women
talking
being open
being alone
I don't like typing on this computer
this laptop
this is not mine
it is his
all that I have is borrowed from him
all that I want to have I have to have the desire to get up and earn
but I never will
I already have


Her shadow hasn't hung over me in a long time now.
Since the sick stalking has ceased
and I hated myself and it never made me feel better
and now she has no power over me
maybe
maybe there is power in what I can accomplish
maybe there is validity in me
in the me
in the dreams of me
in the abilities
those gifts closeted away
hiding from the others from the them from the outsiders
dumbing down to fulfill the role
I'm over it
I'm over that and now ready, partly at least, to be a little more daring
to go get myself ice cream
maybe I'll run
maybe I'm afraid that I'll get out too far and not want to come back
maybe I won't come back and that will be murderous
and it would be tragic
but God
remember the deal
the pact
the covenant
the transformation in the midst of the altercation
that random encounter that changed the course of fate and made it all different
better for a time
when there was a one to kiss it all away
when there was a one who made the me want
who made the me laugh
and that died
and now there is the decade old us and the me and the mine and the longing and the irritation and the selfishness
and then there are the memories and the history and the grandeur of the big
 of the history that tore me out of the pain and the crazy and the making me want
and what i want is to want the healthy the happy
the best and the reasonable and the healthy
but there is the lost and there is the lonely and there isn't release and there isn't fulfillment
just waiting for that some day when it will all get better than the now when it all gets better
like magic
like a spell
like a miracle
and the cycle goes on it continues and loses me in it and I'm at a loss
lost in the now when I'm free to think and I think too much and I think of the losses
 and I think of the past and the dad I abandoned who abandoned me first
and I wonder if I'll ever be able to explain to any of them what it all truly meant
did it mean anything?
was the cry heard if not seen?
was there a sign asking for help?
will there be grace in the acceptance of all the eccentricities that make me up
when
my mind
goes out
my
mouth
and its all heard
like I want it to be
like it was meant
to be
like I never want you to hear it

because the rivalry I've created riles up in me and I hate you and I want to do it all better and bigger and more successfully than you could ever
and I don't like you
and I like to think of your demise

but I wander
and I'm sick
and I wonder if I'm the only one who thinks like I think
but then I remember that there are the others and the ones who can't make eye contact in the crowd who
can't make the small talk like the man
who hate the loud and read the books and are
just
like
me
and that makes me feel a little more free and that someday I'll join that exclusive club that I never thought I could join because there never was a place for aspiration in the sacrifice of survival
in the myriad of prison homes that we've run through
just a place to be free
I'd like a place to be free
where the walls don't feel like they hold me in
but that they contain me wrapping me in the safety of their stability
ability
likeability
and to be
and I suppose some day I'll make peace with the beast and reconcile the docile submissive tiny one and the loud and angry creative one
the dichotomy I created for myself to have an escape from the chaos
that chaos that was real
the tragedy we narrowly avoided and all the loss
and all the tears
 and all the yelling
and the being alone and the lonely cries and then
all the boys filling the void and the diversion of getting the numbers and making them smile and being free to get the attention of others who might like to have yours
and they had mine
all
and then the ring
and then the finality
and the security and the
monogamy
and the babies
lots of the babies that led to the illness
the darkness of an illness that put into another cell
another confinement
that encompassing bigness that trapped you, tiny

maybe you'll sing
maybe it would be amazing to be free

Monkey see Monkey do

two lives pushing for peace

monotonous doer of things

changer of diapers

maker of food

balance provider 

taper of wounds

bleeding beating heart caged but alive

dreamer suspended

oppressed 

beaten down

beaten down to a whisper

beaten down to a ping

beaten down to a nuisance

doer can't hear a thing

wanderlust striver

conniver

instigator

hold your tongue potential changer

cause a fuss would be a bust

to speak out and live and live

live alive with a smile 

live alive with a purpose

not suppressed or 

misdirected

doer be chooser

trained chooser heart beater

that voice and that will beaten down to no voice

beaten down to no choice

to no thrill

to no excitement

no wander

no wonder

stifled adventure

adventurer galore

to wonder the world

now to live is a chore 

a chore not a bore not a muse

Dr. Seuss

i hate inspiration because i killed mine