My brain tells me
“Keep going.
There’s more
to learn
and there’s more
to be.
Keep going.
There are fragments of ourself
that need to be fixed
and flaws
that need to be tamed.
Keep going.
Because if we don’t,
if we stop,
we will fail
again.”
But I am weary
and my body is tired,
screaming for rest
my brain is convinced
is unsafe.
I can’t pretend
the ending didn’t almost kill me.
At the time,
I wasn’t sure it wouldn’t.
I spent my days
in a little hotel room,
begging a higher power
I wasn’t yet sure of
to wake me
from the nightmare
my life had become:
sleeping through the daylight,
drinking to survive
what losing myself
in another
had done,
unable to see
a way out.
Now, the nightmare has become a dream
I am still waking from.
As it fades into memory,
I am left
holding the parts of me
that survived,
finally learning
to find my way home
to myself.
I did not know freedom would hurt.
In what was lost,
a new life was gained—
and my soul feels pulled in two directions:
my old ways,
and the ones I am stepping into.
I never knew nostalgia could hurt
so much,
or that freedom could be found
in forms of loss.
The sunrise I never thought would come
is finally dawning,
and I am scared
of what it means
to leave the darkness behind.
Storms comfort me.
The sound of the wind rushing,
tree branches bending under its’ power.
Heavy rain on a roof,
accompanied by striking flashes of light
and deep, rattling booms.
The display of Mother Nature’s power
is a sovereignty in its own right—
a welcome reminder
of how small I am
in the vastness of life.
And in that smallness,
I can breathe again.
I never liked hope
before;
it was just another thing
I had to learn to survive.
Now I find myself
yearning to embrace
hope’s comforting warmth,
and I am scared
to welcome it in.
But I think that finally
I am ready
to say goodbye
to the walls and the fences,
the isolation and the armor,
and crack the gate
open.
I was yours
once upon a nightmare—
because all nightmares
start as dreams.
And for a time,
I did not mind.
I fell in love with
the dream you created,
and before I knew better
I got caught up
doing what I could
to keep it
from ending.
I’m not sure
when the dreamscape
you painted
grew so dark,
only that I noticed
too late.
And upon awakening—
I do not recognize the world.
I made you my sun
when I was an Icarus.
Addicted to your warmth,
and disregarding
the destruction of fire,
I flew too close
and I stayed too long
until you melted my wings
and I entered a free fall.
Dear Omaha,
Your ghost still haunts me like a protruding scar on my heart that may never fade. In quiet moments, both it and its echos come to me, stalking the darker halls of my mind.
I know that I am not innocent in these affairs. With my heart and mind in a state of dilapidation, I chose complicity every time to claim a place by your side, and the sides of those to come. I gave everything, and it was never enough.
But there was a time when you and your echos did bring some light into my darkness, and for a while, that light was enough to keep going. I never thanked you for that. Even now, the ghost of you and its echos are a source of power for my healing.
I do not regret everything we did and everything we shared and everything we said. In a strange twist that I never saw coming, I am grateful for the experience of you. For because of you, I am wiser and I am stronger and I am becoming the person I am meant to be. I hope your soul can find that too.
So thank you, and farewell,
JPM
your hands lingering on my body
erotic conversations in a car
winks given across the room
say you want me to bloom
my body aflame where you touch
my knee, my thigh, my arm
a hand on my breast
breath caught in my chest
your hands in my hair
voice low in my ear
heat blooming in my core
my body begging for more
Older Woman and Younger Girl,
a History of My Life.
She has me spellbound,
leaving me confound.
