It froze me cold in the thick of night,
The demons taking hold.
Feeling myself falling into this hole.
I can no longer taste the mornings of waking before sunrise
and praying that I please be better today than the day before.
More pain is encircling me now,
I’m chasing my own tail trying to get back to myself.
The walls are caving in and my breath is shortening.
Why don’t you remember what it means to stand in your truth?
I’m calling out to you.
My heart is breaking for the broken,
And I’m fragile still from the shattering of death.
I can not hold the broken glass.
The shards are ripping me at the seams.
I’m bleeding, can’t you see?
Can’t you see how this is tearing into me?
I smell that demon on your breath,
Clouding up your head,
And the exhales are slowly suffocating me.
I thought I could handle them,
But they seem to be slipping into my bloodstream.
The fears of you alone
Carving knives into your soul,
I swear it shakes me to the bone.
So I toss aside myself,
Thinking I can just pick her up later.
But as your cup runs empty,
So does mine,
And I have to pull the energy to nurture from dangerously deep inside,
From my own place that I hide.
Where no one is supposed to go.
You haven’t seen the tears.
You haven’t heard the weeping.
But I promise you they’re there,
Ravaging and reaping.
This was never supposed to hurt.

My grief is a sickness towards everything around me. My grief is paralyzing resistance. My grief is the midwife to my anger. My grief is walking in a cloud of darkness. My grief is dressed in black. My grief is a slow poison leaking, it is a stone in my heart. My grief is tears buried so **** deep. My grief sounds like muffled screaming. My grief wants to scream. My grief wants love, to laugh, to be seen. My grief wants nothing but to exist without judgement. My grief is just trying to make its way out of me. My grief doesn’t want to be the enemy, it doesn’t want to make me cold. My grief wants to speak and tell you I’m sorry for how your grief was to you. My grief is lack of compassion because I’m hurting and feel like I must be silent. My grief is ancient. Universal. My grief plays out in dreams that co-star my guilt. My grief knows me inside and out. It has a place in every cell. My grief is held, cradled in the safe, warm arms of its mother. My grief has outgrown what I can hold. My grief lives within the soul of the universe, so I know you feel it too. My grief is the deep breaths. My grief is the fruit from a seed of love. My grief has roots. My grief is so sacred. My grief is you. It’s her. My grandmother. My grief is her last words. My grief is that I don’t feel I am living up to them. My grief misses your voice. And mine. My grief is for me, too. My grief is still grieving. My grief is knowing that it won’t ever stop.

“Let me hold precious the memory of those who have crossed over by letting them be a part of me.” May I be granted with opportunities in my daily life to honor them through kind and loving actions towards others. When my heart is darkened by the strokes of pain, may laughter emerge from a deep fallow within me and allow for a moment of joy.

“Dissolve the haze of fury, and help me be patient as the puzzle comes together over time.” When I question, “Why?” remind me of my faith in Creation. Bring to light my roll in this becoming, and help me forgive myself for my actions that have contributed to my suffering. Grant me the space to be with my anger and move through its outbursts to its source. Implant within me the tools to feed its call for action with love.

“Mellow my hearts rhythms when it engages in a race with my thoughts.” Help me to stay present to my emotions so I can give them the acknowledgement they deserve. When the tears flow and my chest aches, allow the winds of my ancestors to create space within my heart for healing. Break down my walls so their love can permeate through my being.

“Inject me with a reminder that I didn’t come this far to abandon myself now.” Help me remember these prayers. Give them an open pathway to soak into my subconscious and become my way of living. May I swallow them and let them become my blood, my cells, my being - my foundation for higher consciousness.

May my grieving become a light in the abyss of the unknown.

Little hands are reaching out,
Broken hearts screaming silent cries.
Moving through the veil of life,
through the eminence of this death we shall rise.
In the presence of the magnitude of her love,
this pain is but a pinprick,
a thorn upon the roses stem.
It shall bloom forever,
for the soul knows no end.
The planets shift and move,
reminding me I can do the same.
Our destinies may be carved in stone,
but the author is none other than the hand that is our own.
She’s spilled her blood and exposed her scars,
handles ****** with an elegant grace.
No anger in the bones that will rest,
her peace un-jeopardized by an unexpected fate.
I breathe the moments bedside deep -
extract her nectars,
her love, her faith.
Silently I bow my head,
and promise to honor all that is her name.

7/28/18

To feel them,
those tiny arms, so fragile.
Held you like a babe,
like you held me.
And every reason I chose you
existed within that moment.
Standing only to hold you up,
mothering the broken.
I will hold you in my heart
the way she held you in her womb.
I will carry you that way.
To do so is my purpose -
there by both choice and design.
I am the hands that hold the chain,
anchor suspensed.
There is lead in my heart, too.
I will measure our love by this moment.
For you, to cry and let me
hold you
holds the only weight.
This is all it ever was,
and all it ever will be.

Losing you feels like my body ripping at the seams
(Losing you feels like birthing a new purpose)
Losing you feels like the cry of an abandoned babe
(Losing you feels like a new search is beginning)
Losing you feels like foundation crumbling in my fingers
(Losing you feels like rebuilding myself)
Losing you feels like all the pain of a lifetime bottled into a single jar
(Losing you feels like love is present everywhere now)
Losing you feels like a rage from the core of my being
(Losing you feels like making every action purposeful)
Losing you feels like breaking everything I once deemed as sacred
(Losing you feels like now I understand what it means to hold something as sacred)
Losing you feels like the sky will always be black
Like it will always be raining
(Losing you feels like a new duty has been cast upon me from the heavens
Like the feeling of rain on my skin)
Losing you feels like the burning
Like the old scars no longer matter to me at all
(Losing you feels like the fire is now warmer
Like there are new wounds scaring over)
Losing you feels like gasping under crashing waves
Like drowning
(Losing you feels like every breathe is important
Like the first gasp of air)
Losing you feels like a forever famine
(Losing you is like planting a single seed to feed a million)
Losing you feels like a life long battle
(Losing you feels like an initiation to become a warrior)
Losing you feels like the universe is void
(Losing you feels like you’re filling all the holes inside of me)
Losing you feels like a death of my own
Like I will never be the same
(Losing you feels like an opening
Like life has taken on new meaning)
Losing you (is gaining an angel)

day light will be new -
the way it will rise from the infinite night sky,
promising that i will see you.
that moon in a blue sky,
the reminder that what illuminates darkness
can never fade.
always, i will become full again.
the pain will wax and wane,
the tears will swell and pour out.
i will collect them in the deepest fallows of my heart
and my body will flood,
will shed,
will empty and become hollow.
from a void vast and powerful,
matter will slowly form again,
lie a single silver egg,
from it an entire universe of stars
and love will birth.
i will believe, still.
i will trust even when the pain torments each corner of my mind.
i will rise.
i will rise for your body that is weak and dis-eased.
i will form a new self,
one that will know daylight and darkness not as duality,
but forces of great mystery.
death, i will not fear you,
but honor you.
i will bow down and offer my prayers to your majesty.