Don't go far off, not even for a day
Don't go far off, not even for a day,
Because I don't know how to say it - a day is long
And I will be waiting for you, as in
An empty station when the trains are
Parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because then
The little drops of anguish will all run together,
The smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
Into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve
On the beach, may your eyelids never flutter
Into the empty distance. Don't LEAVE me for
A second, my dearest, because in that moment you'll
Have gone so far I'll wander mazily
Over all the earth, asking, will you
Come back? Will you leave me here, dying?

one place ineptitude comes up a lot
is the presumed judgment
for my skill level at parenting

I definitely don't feel
like I fit in
there

I'm sure some of this is imagined
but some of it is definitely because
I still struggle with basic things
like remembering
and also I am just
different

it's weird how some letters
etch into my brain permanently
but then I can't remember to do things
like buy a shower curtain liner
after I threw away the moldy one -
it took me five weeks to finally
remember to put it on the list
on that device that's always in hand
and think to look at it at the store
and not after I get home
perpetually wetting
my bathroom floor

shopping is hard a lot
sometimes we have fun
and it doesn't seem stressful
but other times it's this covert panicked
mad dash to get what's required
and I'm always forgetting things like
toilet paper

it's really weird
what survival mode does to brains

I look at these aliens
who make me feel like they are
professional parents from a foreign land
where every item in their pantry is stored
in cute matching air-tight canisters
with custom labels and dates
and birds fly in the window to sing
while they fold their laundry
at dutiful intervals

I just feel like
a child with a child
in parenting world
even though I know
I'm getting better

when I first came back
I would zone out
from everyone
randomly cry

it was nice
to not have to explain -
my family mostly assumed
it was me detoxing from
that wretched hellship
and subsequent mechanisms
of control he was keeping up
(thank god that really seems to be
stopping, so good I almost don't even
want to get my hopes up, but he seems
to be seeing and letting go of all the ****
he was doing even six months ago...
I hope and pray losing me and the life
he could have had with his son
haunts him enough to break through
his denial and rage and heal enough
to be a decent human being for my kid)

but I wasn't crying over him
he brings me to anger with a speed
and skill level I have never before
and hope to never see again
so, there was rage for him
but those tears
were not his

they were for the shattered hope
of something loving, real,
waiting
for me

with open arms
primed with pacts and promises
that I thought meant

everything

but things change -
maybe not the love or connection
but the faith that good things
are coming

I get that
and see how my inability to speak
may have been a push that sent
this most precious thing that was
fighting, really fighting for me to see
straight into another's arms
because theirs went numb
waiting to for me to jump
while I repelled down the side in silence
petrified of all I ever wanted

because my lips were busy
shaking like my fingers
that forgot how to
hold things

ineptineptinept
not worthy
not good
enough
for him

nor was the stupid poetry
I kept trying to make perfect
because that's what I thought
he deserved

when my anything
would have been good
just a few words, like:
I did it
I'm a mess
I need you more than anything,
but right now I
just. can't.
read or speak
free

it's terrible how horribly effective
false advertising is when it's repeated
over and over and over, you know -
take ******, maniacal diabolical murderous despot that he was, was also a true evil genius of advertising -
you make the lie big, simple,
keep repeating it, and eventually,
they believe it

even when you know
it's all ******* and it's bad for ya,
it still gets in, writing on your psyche
and part of you believes somewhere
underneath the logical know
and defeated flippant eye-rolls
that maybe you are
a stupid ******* ****
a ***** *****
fat and old and ugly
that no one else would ever
want you

and that you
- deserved -
every last terrible thing
inflicted upon you in venom

do you think we could put aside the internal asides prattling past rapture gone rupture, table or under the table throw those scraps to the dog that's pawing in favor of what's under our noses, on the plate facing up at us smiling a reflection in a circle of ceramic glaze gazing past the imperfect ramifications crystallized in those times and bones that still do bind and also occasionally chafe when they chime, the fragmented fancies that danced behind eyelids then knocked back the whites taking unglued precedence while neurons sat back and just watched momentum pulse, so stunned to find where you stopped there I started, and the only push-pull was helixical orb tossed on linguistic winks kinking our forever-tied lines that plead underneath the jilted to stop slanty-eyeballing the looking glass crass, affixing shark fangs where one once only saw wings, though truth be told, I have both of those things, but drain you, I won't, and feed you, I will, leaving marked memoirs of my work, but it'll be your fault, really, evoking the majestic while summoning the animal that reminds me why I'm knees-grateful to be a woman

?

there were times
when I filled my lonely cracks
with whatever sort of fit

though I knew
it wasn't really capable of
meeting me on all my levels -
intensity, emotion, intellect,
oddity, creativity, curiosity,
carnal abandon

I've found matches
but those compounds
burn out quickly
sparklestarts
fading

it's terrible how lonely I am
yet, resist being appeased
with (con)temporaries

it always ends up making me
more lonely

after crave subsides
and short-lived chems exit
the self-loathings start chanting
we ******* told you so

when my heart says nope
which it almost always does,
at some percentage,
my body knows -
I'm there, but not fully
in it:
walled distrustful protection mode
no wide open uninhibited throes
it's aspects of yes, meshed with no

it's why
a majority of my encounters
have involved substances
my addiction is afflicted
with knowing
it won't be
the thing I crave

so I numbed
my persnickety heart
in order to keep
fever down

I can't just
open up for anyone -
unfurl rose spectrum
of precise art and language
that comes from heart
and dictates skeleton
to dance in ecstatic
primal possession

I am flint
crafted for
reciprocal ignition
upon inherent nature
of symmetric material

and you know, my heart
has never been blasted off hinges
with body in tandem, 100%

but I know that it
can and will

heal all the things
burn up the pain,
the unbelonging

wipe the slate free
of tormented cravings
replacing with gratitudinal awe

between my writhe
venerating milk
whole

my pink orchid sits wilting
next to the kitchen sink

I feared it was thirsty
and starting to die
so I overwatered

now the petals
are definitely
falling

then pushed into
grey matter *******
asphyxiating pump white
from red life

rising together
then falling
apart

I walk
through forest char
reminiscing, not so much
plumes of combusting hope,
as the feeling of
not alone
in core

you were my ooofo
come to wake me
home