I’ve been carrying this weight.
Bending my shoulders,
At times,
It breaks me
And I fall to my knees.

I talk to it,
I say,
“I know you’re there.”
“It’s not that bad. You’re not that heavy.”
“I can keep carrying you.”

Little deceptions on my part.
Little attachments to the past.
Memories, obscured by pain.
In a heap, on my back.
In my heart.

I stop, and rest.
But I never put it down.

Until, one day
I see my eyes dark,
my shoulders stooped.
My head continuously bowed.
My legs beginning to shake,
My knees and ankles crying out….

“You’ve carried this long enough.”
“Please let it go.”
“It’s safe now.”
“Your life is joyful now.”
“This weight, it’s past time
to set it down”

And so I begin the arduous task
Of untangling all the ties that bind it to me.
The ones that weave in and out of my heart,
Around and under my soul.
And release it.
Just release it.

It will be some time,
Before the pain is all healed.
Like a broken leg,
Or a broken heart.
But it will heal.

Without the weight.

I think it will be easier to just miss him
Than to carry the weight of the lies and betrayal around
Any longer.

With each word,
And each minute
And each mile,
I will be freer.

One day, it will all be gone.

And I’ll be upright and beautiful again
And happy.

Without the weight.

Dust in the wind
That’s what his promises were,
Dust in the wind.

Blowing across the desert of his emotions
Or the lush green valleys of mine
The sweet lies just blew across the landscape
Obscuring the truth with a dull brown pall.

Anxiously I awaited them.
Passionately I believed them.
Love blinded me to the truth.

Promises were just pretty lies
Constructed of mud,
Dried into sand from the void of his heart
And then, in the final moments,
Blown far and wide,
Disintegrated into a million billion tiny bits.

My heart withstood the assault.
Though it was worn to the core,
It has healed.

No more pretty lies….

Sleep, confused.
The past behind one eye.
The future behind the other.
Third eye looking for the present moment.

Sliding from one to the other
Looking for the truth.

I dreamed of the crazy one.
And then of lost one.
Almost interchangeable.
And then one yet to come……

I don’t know yet.

Consciousness slid easily
In and out
From one dream to the next.

No sadness,
No judgment.
Just what was,
What is.

Finally, gratitude
And sounds of the sea
scattered the dreams
into the comforting darkness
of sleep.

Morning light came,
Past was past.
Future, just a thought,
a hope, a dream.
Present was the sun
Rising over the trees
Promising, once again.

Peace.

Losses.

I have had a few this year.

Loss of a love that was so intense,

So sweet, like nothing else.

Now, I don’t even know if it was real.

That’s really what that loss was all about,

Because I’m coming to believe the man I loved

never really existed except in my heart.

When all the layers were peeled away,

Truth exposed,

He wasn’t there.

Then, I lost my mother.

My sweet loving mother.

I know that was real loss, but honestly

I know she’s still with me.

I miss talking to her.

I missed her hugs when I was in Florida.

I missed the way her face lit up when she saw me

And the way she still knew my voice on the phone, even a week before she died.

But her love, her unconditional, limitless, just-because-I-existed love

Is still with me.  Always.

It wraps around me, even at this moment, like a warm blanket on a cold winter’s night.

And now, I’m losing my kitty.

She was with me during all the dark days of my long contentious divorce.

She was with me when that man broke me into 1000 pieces

and she’d lay next to me purring whenever she heard me sobbing into my pillow.

She was with me when my mother slipped away, and slept next to me

Kept me company.

She and that man, who only told more sweet lies.

The kitty was true. The man was anything but. 

Now I embark on a new life,

Exciting life, a dream manifesting.

But without my mother, and my kitty,

Both of whom loved me unconditionally.

The man, over whose loss I cried the most,

Doesn’t even matter.

He was just a figment of my imagination.

The other two were real,

They gave me something to hold on to that no one can take away.

I’m not comparing the loss of my mother to the loss of my kitty.

They are just both loss in this context, real, painful loss.

They mattered.

Their presence always gave me something.

Their loss leaves the world lacking.

The man?  What was his name, again?

Priorities have been realigned for some time now.

But the illustration is just now finishing.

Glass of white wine.
Lavender scented hot hot bath.
Relax, stretch out.
Lean back.
Close eyes,
Breathe in
the lavender
Essential oil.

Essential, at the moment.

Shopping.
Bought a dress.
A fun dress, to wear out.
For Florida, with my friends.
Above the knee. 
(My Florida friend swears she knows hot musicians.)
Bought some flip flops.
Trying on clothes
in the stall next to my BFF.
“Help me with the zipper…”
“How does this sweater look?”
Both of us tried on the same dress.
Neither of us liked it.
I tried on another
I liked it. She approved.

Bought a new pocket book.
That’s what I went for. LOL.

Came home.
Pot roast in the crock pot
Smelled good.
Even my son said so.

I cleaned the bathroom,
son’s bathroom.
He tried to stop me,
He said he’d do it. But
I wanted to take a bath.
I cleaned it.
It wasn’t that bad.

There I lay
in a lavender
Essential Oil Scented
very hot
Bathtub
With a glass of white wine
Garlic stuffed huge green olives.
A good book
My iPhone playing
Pavarotti.

Life is good. Sigh……

My heart
Closed for so long
Is cracking open again.

The beating had slowed,
As my heart contracted.
Feeling small,
The outer edges became thick
And hard,
Impervious.
It only wanted safety.

It wept quietly inside of me,
Begging me not to expose it again
To
The lies
The deceptions
The rewriting of history
The duplicity.

And so I didn’t.
I won’t.

There is nothing left to say or do.
Lies exposed, deceptions revealed.
I breathed, in relief.
And walked away.

My heart is happy, today.
It opened one eye,
and began to soften again
In preparation
For living
No longer fearing dying
At my hand.
No longer having to fear
Another onslaught of
Lies
Deceptions

Darkness falls outside my windows.
The daylight travels from one side of my house
To the other,
And fades to azure twilight
And then,
To indigo night.

Alone all day,
With my thoughts
Cleaning,
Cooking,
Folding Laundry.
Music playing,
Floors gleaming

Thoughts……
Idle stream of consciousness
A glimpse of the point,
Islands in the distance.
A glimpse of the chapel,
Waves lapping the shore.

Words spoken, confusion
Love……filling the space
To find the way through it.
To find a way for hope to grow
A way to go on.

Love, that only asked for your happiness
Was all there was.
There was no cost to give it.
There was no price exacted.

But one was paid anyway.
It cost a friendship.
Love only went one way
That day.
And every day.

And once again,
It was thrown out
Like yesterday’s trash.

There is no pain
You are receding.
There is no loss,
I never had anything to lose.

But you…..
Maybe you did.
Maybe you do.

My thoughts, idle
Move away
To somewhere distant.
You may look for me some day,
Trying to understand
This chaos that you created.
But I’ll be gone,
You won’t see me.
You won’t find me.
I’ll be gone.

Peace.

Sometimes I still wonder
What it was.
Was it real?
Did it matter?

Most of the time,
I just let it go.
Sometimes,
A stray memory
Pops out of the recesses of my heart
Or pang of loneliness
Wanders in the door,
They sit down beside me,
(I’m guessing they visit her too.)
And look me in the eye,
Or take my hand,
Asking questions
That have no answers.

Not for me.
Not for her.
No one knows
But him.
Even though
He says he doesn’t.

Even now.
With all the words that were spoken
All the love that was given
And taken
All the pain that was endured
All the forgiveness that was given
I wonder.

I wrote this some time ago, and I just found it and decided to post it.  Why did I care, after all that happened?  Maybe this explains, maybe not, but I think it is how it is.  I called it

Night and Day, #2

You were always night
I was always day.
Never to share the same space
You said.
Passing each other at dusk and dawn.
Creating the most beautiful times of day.
The most intensely amazing.

What can one know about the night?
About the power of the darkness,
And the beauty?
The peace?
Nothing…..
Without the brightness of the day?

What can one know about the day?
About the power of the light?
And the beauty?
The joy?
Nothing…..
Without the darkness of the night.

Together, a complete circle,
A whole.

For this, I am grateful.
For your presence in my life
I am grateful.

For this, I love you.
For your darkness I love you.
For the rest from the brightness of day
I love you.
For the stars in your indigo sky,
For the moon in your heaven.
I love you.

Thank you.