"Dreams" he said, "I want you to write about your dreams"
I watched his expression full face, talk with his usual infectious vibrancy...
candle flickering, between belly laughs, raw unscripted stories, uncensored truth and the feeling of complete freedom to be human, his pouring over the brim life experiences..dripped from his fingertips as he spoke with his hands.
I'm Lucky. I thought. As I sat there, sinking into his words and gentle loving soul.
Just to simply know him, to hear of his adventures, heartbreaks, falls and climb to the top of life's list of goals and successes.
So I meditated on this writing assignment...for weeks.
I've written of Love, Loss, Heartache and Regrets.
But Dreams...I've yet to fall into ink drenching grains of paper and be completely free of the ever ticking time...to do just that... Dream.

In an instant, I’m back in that two-bedroom
apartment on Monte Park Ave, in old town Fair Oaks. Where family photos and live plants cluttered the already small space. It was a Monday night, February 13,2012, the day before Valentines Day, doing a routine visit to see my mama. The woman, who had birthed and loved me, as best as she could, with the tools life had equipped her with. This visit was different I could sense it. The moment I stepped foot onto that beige carpet and looked into her sunken green eyes. The cancer, cirrhosis and hepatitis C that had eaten at her liver the last two and a half years was coming to an end. My mother was a hardened woman, hardened by life. Crimes that had been committed against her and crimes she’d committed against herself continually ate at her. She was still able to shower an immense, unconditional love on us kids; in the days she was able to function, without the inevitable numbing. Those days didn’t last long, until she’d check out again.
As an adult the childhood ghosts of her past, were relived through her. So much to the point she allowed the destruction and pain to take ahold of her thoughts and entire being. The darkened corners of her life would begin to suffocate her.
As kids we’d often wake to her drunken blackouts after the town bars closed. She’d destroy the furniture in my home, demolishing anything within arms reach. Police would come often, we would hide…fearful…always fearful. She would sober up and check herself into rehab and do well for a while. We always hoped it would just one day end and she would be okay. The cycle just seemed to continue, for years, then decades. We would see fragments of her amazing personality, deep gentle heart and willingness to love hard and stay tough. Then it would be wiped away and knocked out of her when she’d run. Slowly, we lost pieces of her throughout the years.
My mom came to know a relationship with God in the last years of her life. I could sense a peace within her, but it was plain to see, she still carried regrets. Alcohol and drugs were her numbing medicine of choice to drown out the pain of the past. Even in her last days, she’d attempt to drink away the pain. I’d hold her feeble hands, sitting on her couch and pray with her. Pray for peace to finally consume her mind. Ever since I was a child, I had always felt like her mother. I wanted to save her, protect her, help her to see her worth in God.

It was just three months prior to her diagnosis, and I had found her cold and almost lifeless on her apartment floor. She had attempted suicide. It was late at night. I hadn’t heard from her in two days. I had that motherly gut wrenching feeling that something wasn’t right. Remembering the key I had to her apartment, I rushed out the door in only a bathrobe to check on her. I unlocked her front door; my heart hit the ground as I carefully turned the living room corner, to see her body, still, by the foot of her bed. In a numb haze, I checked her pulse and lifting her off the floor, I wailed and called on the name of Jesus, Jehovah Rapha – the God who heals, El – Shaddai – an almighty God. Peace flooded the room as I claimed this womans broken life and soul in his name. I laid her on her bed and held her, waiting for the ambulance to come. Those next four days in the hospital were torturous. As her body fought to rid itself of the toxins she’d consumed in an attempt to end the misery. Handcuffed to the hospital bed, I watched her sweat, cry and wail. I would pray. He’s here. He’s the healer. Even in that state God loved my mother, she was his child, even when she was most unlovable, he held her.

It is now, less than three years later, that I am watching her life slowly drain.
I can distinctly remember the aroma that I woke to, on Tuesday, February 14th, 2012. Having slept a horrid nights sleep, on my mothers’ living room floor the night before. I knew the end was near.
I would wake hourly to check on her, while she was asleep on her couch. Normally, she would take her meds every three hours. This night, she had slept more than ten straight hours. Drenched in sweat, she awoke. She called to me to help her to the bathroom. Her husband and I each held her arms and pulled her to her feet. Halfway to standing she began to hemorrhage blood. Gallons, literally gallons of blood spilled out of her. Her husband began to scream. We were never prepared for this. Never was hemorrhaging mentioned in all of the hospice nurse and doctors visits. Unable to call 911 due to the DNR (do not resuscitate) forms my mom signed. We slowly walked her to the bathroom. Blood poured out of her body in what seemed to be the longest walk ever, leaving a trail of what was left of her life down that hallway.
Expecting her to collapse, doing my doggone best to act calm as her husband cried and screamed frantically. We laid towels over the toilet and sat her down hoping to stop the hemorrhaging and call the hospice nurses to come to her home. Once I let go of the grip I had on my moms arm, I grabbed Drews face and ordered him to breathe and quit screaming. My mother sat, silent, she looked up at us, our hands and feet covered in blood, both frantically searching for the nurses numbers in our cell phones in a shaky mess. She quietly said, “please calm down”. I wrapped my arms around her, sitting there looking faint, expecting for her to hit the floor at any moment.
No child should ever have to see their mother bleed to death. I felt as though I was in a dream. Everything was hazy. Yet, God was there. I could only rely on his strength to keep me calm, to handle the situation, as Drew lost his mind and my mom was quickly losing life.
This couldn’t possibly be the end, I said to myself. Gently lifting her to her feet, we guided her down the remainder of the hall, to her bedroom; to the hospital bed she would spend her remaining days on. I stripped my mom of her blood-drenched clothing. Bathed and diapered her, as she had to me for many years as an infant. Those last days felt like an eternity. Going home to shower and take a short break from the death unfolding in front of my eyes, I was fearful she would slip away in my one-hour absence. I went to the store to buy my momma the last bouquet of roses I would ever give to her. I lit the candle next to her flowers. I played music, read and sang to her in those last hours. Massaged her hands and feet with lotion, as I’m sure she did to me as a baby. I prayed for her and over her. Watched her husbands’ heart break into a billion pieces, as he would walk around their apartment and cry. Still then, God was there.

“ With all lowliness and meekness, with long suffering, forbearing one another in love”.
Ephesians 4:2

Amidst the pain, the known regrets, fear and sadness, he’s the comforter. Not understanding why my eyes and heart had to burned with such tragic memories in watching her suffer, Gods peace lied there and he strengthens when we have none.

“ I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me”.
Phillipians 4:13

That final night, I had known. Sitting in the living room with one of my dearest friends Shawna and Drew,
I stood up “ we need to go check on her “ I said, as I stepped in her room, she was struggling to take her last breaths. Her husband ran to the far side of the bed and held onto her, wailing. I grabbed her hand and my friend grabbed mine.
She was fighting to breathe, her arms flailing.
I told her it was ok to go. To finally let go.
I fought to speak those words to her and to make them sound believable. Wishing she could just climb up off of that bed, healthy and smiling and hold me.
When she took her last breath. I watched her body lose its vibrancy. Shaken and strangled with anxiety, I threw up on the floor next to her bed. Having known the struggles and regrets this precious woman bore in her lifetime…and how at that moment…she’d have given anything to redo it.

“As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.”
Psalm 103:12

Do I know if my mother truly believed an all-consuming savior that died for us wholly loved her?
I don’t.
Do I have complete contentment that she passed with all the peace that God intended for us to have?
I don’t.

Which has led me to this. When the fateful day of my existence here on earth, ceases to watch another sunrise…what will my precious babies have to say of me?
I have nurtured every one of them; kissed chubby piggy toes and sang silly songs.
I, like many, have made heart-wrenching mistakes despite knowing Gods love for me.
All in an attempt to fill a God shaped whole in my heart.

“Those who rest in the shelter of the most high will find rest in the shadow of the almighty.”
Psalm 91:1

What will my beautiful daughters and handsome son be able to reflect upon, after my passing?
Perhaps this was his plan after all.

“It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes”
Psalm 119:71

He is in fact the author.

“O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off”
Psalm 139:1-2

Every intricate detail of my life, from the gory to treacherous to beautiful and serene was written.
God gives first, second, third, fourth, fifth , sixth and beyond chances, just waiting for me to see who I am…in him.
In this short 30 years of my life, I’ve fallen short.
What matters, is the here, the now and the tomorrow.
Can I actually attain all of the attributes of the woman in Proverbs 31?

“Her children arise up and call her blessed; her husband also praiseth her”
Proverbs 31:28

Will my children be able to say this of me?
Will my sleepy eyed babies awake to drunken rages, as I did as a child…or a woman on her knees in prayer at suns rising?
I will strive daily, hourly, minute by minute to fight back the rising of my flesh, any hateful words that might ******* and distractions from what life is really created for…all on my knees before a God whose love consumes.

“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”
Proverbs 3:5-6

"You were born to do this."
I reminded myself as I sat there feeling encaged in a flurry of endless thought and emotion.
"Why do I have to feel every aspect of every event of life, so deep?"
I thought as I fought myself once again to simply pick up the pen and drain the overflow of despondency onto paper.
"Breathe."
The words, letters, verbs and thoughts continued to swirl in my ever rampantly unsettled abyss of ideation.
Once I surrendered to the raging of the erupting of the soul..there was calm.
It's likened to the deaf..taken away their ability to sign..The dancer with both feet removed.
Had I no other pleasure but to expel grief, fervor and elation and form them into words to heal the shattering so entrenched..they appear unreachable..I'd beg to be buried with just a writing utensil and endless reams of freshly pressed paper.
"Theres Light."*
I mouth that..as I continue to jot as if I were stitching my heart back together with this pen.
Even though I'm within this seemingly grave like cave of aching..I can write.
The beauty is in the creation..The ability to construct, like a carpenter..all that your heart desires with your own two hands..to simply Heal the paragraphs of life that were written badly, write over them or erase and rewrite..if only it were that easy.
I don't aim to undo..I cannot.
Just to poetically fabricate from this point on..allow the stumbles to happen and Love greater than thought fathomable.
Surrender. To the page.
Scribble it out, empty it onto line after line..and crawl atop..until the words fill the fragments and the ink stains your fingertips..Keep climbing upon the proverbial stacks of paper until the towers reach the aperture of the pit.
Creating the mending of affliction, soothing the misery of the choking of words you cannot utter, but you can scratch them onto tablets to deplete the churning of the mind.
Write. Write badly.
Write as if in a mad race to the finish line, then start over again..Until the trails of Letters stretch so long..you could dance upon them for days.
Then Breathe.
Soak every word into your skin as if attempting to heal the afflictions..
then Become it.

For the past two years, I've written parts of this in my mind and it never felt right to put pen to paper until now.
I needed to reach a place of peace and full forgiveness to fully express to you the language of my heart, in a way that would voice transparently true and real.
Whether I ever send this to you or not, it's finally on a tangible form of matter and emptied from my busy mind and heart, making room for more of what matters.
I hope this finds you well.

Written below is life.

The fear, desolation, loss, pain, abandonment, loneliness, sickness, regrets, rejection and utter disbelief, became a platform for growth.
Stretching my mind and heart to endure more than I thought I could handle and the belief that I could possibly die from a heartbreak, built me.
You've missed out on beauty.
Watching Gavin grow from the daily tears of losing his pawpaw and wondering when you were going to come back, to the occasional question about his past and he's grown into already completing multiplication equations at the age of 6. He aspires to be a paleontologist and travel the world, with a map tacked large across his bedroom wall, nestled in our home, the one that overflows with unconditional love. That allows breakdowns to happen, because we've all been there. He's come from daily tears to hilarious mannerisms and has a personality that every person, from his barber to his Taekwondo instructor, have fallen in love with. He still wakes up to silly songs every morning and is known as Best Buddy because he's the best boy that's ever lived. He knows he  is loved, despite the small ache that I know still gnaws at his tender heart from time to time and I've built a community of strength around him to assure him that he's safe.
Emily has grown into a strong beautiful almost woman. She's already chosen a career path and she strives daily to achieve small goals in order to reach the large ones. Mapping out her sophomore and junior year to be completed in one with home studies, and I'm amazed at her drivenness. She is kind, sincere, forgiving, understanding, smart and wonderfully gracious and thoughtful. She battled with severe anxiety after losing our home and went through months of cognitive therapy and medications to help her sleep. To now having voluntarily stopping the therapy, weening off of the medication, working out daily, eating healthy and taking on multiple babysitting jobs. This life pain has taught her that people make mistakes, that nothing in life is certain and to cling to your family tight because it's all that matters.
Kaitlyn still has her peculiar Ramona Quimby mischievous traits and never fails to ask the same mind boggling questions at the most in-opportune times. She's as tall as Emma and is drop dead beautiful. Her grades are exceptional and she's passionate about fitness and loves her friends. She was one of three 6th graders to make the competitive cheer team at her school, that cut 15 girls at tryouts.
What I Love most about her is her genuine thankfulness. Every time I check out a register at the grocery store or buy her things as simple as a toothbrush, she expresses gratitude like no one I've ever known.

The sleepless nights spent tossing and turning crying myself to sleep, replaying the story over and over in my head, have now turned to bright beautiful mornings.

I wake up to a person that makes it his daily goal to remind me that I matter & that I'm loved.
He's endured the tears flooded that followed with anxiety drenched vomiting, held me and told me that I'm the most beautiful, even in those states.
He's made me laugh from deep down in the belly, accepted all of my flaws and encouraged me like, never before.
He hides notes throughout the house and in my personal belongings so that I'll read them. In hopes that the words he's written will sink into my subconscious, the same way that the ink sunk into the paper and I'll finally believe my worth.

So, thank you.
For pushing me out.
For giving me the opportunity to see even more immense beauty in my children, forcing my heart to become bold and strong and giving me the die or fight strength to blossom into the Fierce woman that I've become.
I needed to prove you wrong when you spoke words of death over my life, "you're children will never amount to anything, because they have you as a mother".
Every new friend that I meet and families we befriend, are in awe of my relationship with my children and always congratulate me on having raised them into kind respectful people.
Thank you, for shaking my life so heavily that I was able to really know who God is, more deeply than ever. Forgiveness became a whole new meaning to me and my kids watched as all of the pieces healed and they've been able to heal right along side of me. Loving flawed and leading with love has become a staple of our home and lives and this learned trait will be inherent within them for the remainder of their lives. So once again, thank you.
I am where I'm supposed to be.
It's not unfinished business.
The pain is almost fully healed and I'm grateful to have experienced the pain and loss.
So that I can grasp what's at hand whole heartedly.
The sun still continues to rise, as you used to say and the morning fog lifting daily stripped the hardness from my heart.
You came into my life for a reason and a season and I wish you nothing but prosperity, love and happiness. Best wishes on the remainder of your life journey and I hope you have found peace, love and all of the wonderful joys that God freely gives.
Farewell.

Sincerely,

Natasha Ivory Evans

I met a man.. that I believe..I have dreamt into existence.
He spoke life into my dreams, dried my tears, when I cried from my ever healing soul, planted lavender below my window sills, surfed the ups and downs of my complicated moods and patiently waits..

He's the constant, I never knew was real, the strength that keeps my back from bowing, the gentle...that soothes every doubt.

He's the description of what Love..is truly meant to be.

There are some, that can see the fine lines between reality and fantasy.
There are others, that do not.
I see it...the fragile space between each depth and line.
I see you.
The creases of smile lines..the crows feet..where sun beat upon your handsome gentle smile in the daylight of a golf game...your hands scrambling to grip the "stick" just right..your head turn toward me..for the look of approval...glancing at me, amidst pines and weeping willows.
Sun down..as it cast shadows upon our silhouettes.
My heart beating..begging to meet the constant drum of yours.
You.
I failed this Love.
But I never failed to see you.
Beyond the chaos.
You are Love.
Pure and seeking for the heart of acceptance.
I've loved you then.. and I always will.
You gave me a piece of you.
I will carry it..all of my days.


Natasha Evans

I am a writer.

One who can close myself away into a small dimly lit space and gush life onto an insubstantial substance of fibrous material..in hopes that once finished..reads of something that makes sense and releases a tad of this confined fury..that whirls in my ever churning mind.

I am a Dreamer.

A human born into disparaging circumstances, that grasped for anything tangible, as early as I can possibly recollect. With a never ending desire to find truth and love beyond the abuse that I endured throughout all of my childhood..Determined to view life..clear of the filters embedded over my eyes, attempting to force my mind to function through the inherited dysfunction.

I am a Lover.

Believing in a Love so genuine, that it literally heals all human afflictions .
Investing in a hope in all things soulful and lucid.
Craving to Love free of the bounds thought fathomable, truly devoting to other souls..the most valuable asset - Time - and desirous to Lead with Love in every moment.

I am a Writer.

Perplexed.
As I looked into his eyes, replaying the conversation in my mind...over and over again.
Studying his mouth curvature and ****** expressions, change from confidence to bewilderment. As I confronted his most recent "story".
Stumbling over words, not even remembering his own storyline, it all came to a head.
It's all a fog. The last 11 months of my life.
A tangled web of fulfillment..loss..love..pain..a seeming friendship..laughter..hurts..euphoria..
..Lies..love making..confiding..trust..deceit..
half truths..embellished stories..frustrations..
Anxiety..joys..thrills..adventures..irrit­ations..charm..
Dream making..intense loneliness.
He built walls...constructed of flowers, love notes, thoughtful gifts, candle lit baths with rose petals and love songs...all in hopes to keep me within the realm of his safety lines.
He lied to make me love him..I lied to myself into believing it was all real.
When lies become your reality..nothing stands against it..not even..the Truth.
Now I sit. Alone. In the center of the shambles of what we fabricated, fallen at my feet.
Eyes opened. Accepting the reality. Weaving through the confusion.
Hope in the unknown..the sun still continues to rise..hearts heal and Love still exists.

What does it mean to love "scarred". I thought as I sat there running my fingers across the keys of the black keyboard, the letters in white standing still and unmovable atop the glossy charcoal plastic.
Entering data onto the screen..thinking about the facts and details listed into my story.
My mind wandered from the task at hand..I pictured myself...calm in demeanor...raging inside to unleash the fury, fervor and forgiveness of the untold story boiling within.
Tucked away in shades of tall lustrous trees, behind the walls of a small charmingly cozy cabin, emptying the madness of words to create- My Story-in ink.
The one reason I've been given breath and sensation to envision beyond the factitious boundaries that surround these hands and feet.
Loving despite the afflictions that seemingly forever tore at my heart, is quite possibly one of the greatest types of Love.
Constructing within me the ability to Hopefully...Master compassion.
Loving scarred. Loving despite pain, loving with wreckage still in the heart, loving with the stains of tears etched in the skin, loving having the knowledge of love and loss.
Perhaps..this is the best form of Love.
Rather than wishing these away, soaking them in..allowing the forming of the heart to take place.
Love, whether blemished, disfigured or flawed..
is the one source of human capability to fully heal.

Sometimes Dreams die..

Sometimes the fantasies that you create in your mind go to war with reality. And reality wins.

Sometimes the dreams that are fabricated in your thoughts are really just safe, soft places to escape to and can never be made to be tangible.

Sometimes there are forces that halt these selfish desires to hold you out for far more than you imagined.

Sometimes life does you favors, when you think it's sabotaging your dreams and you wake up to realize..that it was all destiny.

I go to sleep, lonely.
When I open my eyes, the loneliness has grown and my heart hurts, it's heavy. There's a space in my heart that grows wider and deeper with every sunset and sunrise.
Invisible. I don't exist in my own life. With every inhale and exhale I fade away more. Without him even noticing. The pain is so intense, I've become numb. Dead to my own memories, insignificant in every small detail. I'm screaming, screaming from the bottom of a bottomless pit. He can't hear me.
Every touch to his body is without emotion. When he needs to fulfill himself, I'm only a body. No more than when I was paid to sell my soul.
Destitute. When I look in the mirror, there are remnants of a woman.

I long for the days when one caress lit up my insides. When a smile put chills down my spine and love could be made with eye contact. The scent of fresh made me want to crawl in bed and laugh and never emerge from the covers again. Where conversation could last for days, never in a hurry, because the most important people or things, were right there with us.

Hollow. Drowning and desperate.
I cry in random places at random times. I want the pain to leave me alone. To never have to feel this way. To wake up with a smile and roll over to make unforced love, that's real and desired. To laugh my day away and fill up my soul.

Tears. I thought they would dry up eventually. My heart and soul well up and gush out the hurt. I try to hold it in, hold it back, it overflows and I find myself wanting to be locked away in a dark room.

Broken. Shattered and unfixable.
I've made my life this.

When I reflect upon, the most pain ridden..chest tightening, disturbed memories...they nearly cause my heart to cease from beating.
Yet, I cannot conjure up the strength to cry.
I've poured out  the regrets, the torment, the sleepless nights and panic attacks that have induced *****...to the point of self paralization.
I've drank and inhaled..to the point of near death..attempting to numb..in a frantic frenzy to run, hide, drown or bury, the torturous memories.
I do all of this... To sober up... And realize...that it's still There.
I'm standing at the base of a pile of life's stench ridden...dark, gloomy, shockingly disgusting memories.
They are stacked as high as I can see..to the proverbial sky. Fuming...as if a train wreck had just occurred.
Yet...I'm still here.
Simply standing.
Arms loosely draped to my sides..shoulders back..lungs still taking in every breath..heart calmly beating.
I gaze up at the wreckage.. Aware that I will have to pick through every portion...and last foul piece of agony, affliction and wounded heart scraps.
I will have to learn from the life altering chaoses and saturate any ounce of joy...then move forward.
Allowing this past to remain...to cease to direct my future...and slowly disinegrate into the soils.

HOPE; The feeling that what is wanted can be had.

One more breath..
I promise..when I fully allow my lungs to inhale..ill listen for you.
One more exhale..upon the last release of pain from this chest..ill utter praise..
One last fragment of my heart dropping like glass on a stone surface..crumbling before you..hear my hearts plea..
Gripping the surface of the earth with all that's within me..prying at the crumbles of gravel below my knees..crawling..at the pace less than a snail...hear my heart...it wails..it sees the wholeness of all that you offer...
Scratching at hells door..knees bloodied..screaming at the top of my lungs..

Death.
I remember sitting in that room. Feeling as if the walls were going to close in around me.
That space and lapse between the ticking of the hand of the clock..from one second to the other. To the expanding of her lungs..the breaths that grew shorter and the flailing and fight of the body..begging for one more breath..as if in a fist fight with the arms of the clock..to reverse time.
Laying here, with my phone in hand..in the dark at 4:00 a.m., the backlight of the screen blaring in my eyes as I breath between sentences..ponder these memories and the plethora of thoughts and watch the cursor pulse.. as I lay one word in front of the other.
Time..is running out. Passing, even as I space these letters of the alphabet, strategically across this screen.
Love.
Reminiscing on my Mothers life and painful, agonizing passing, springs my mind and heart into action..to Love harder, live fuller and leave some sort of legacy to my children.
The one thing that she lived and taught, through the..sometimes disastrous way that she lived..was unconditional Love. There wasn't a word that passed through my lips that would cause her, to ever not love me. She was real, down to earth, tough as nails and lived through a life of surreal pain that most people couldn't even fathom.
Faith.
Fate has a way of stealing our blueprint for our life and rewriting it.
The immense, seemingly unbearable pains that come with growing and picking yourself up from one obvious failure to the next and the self doubt, confusion and hopelessness it's wrapped in, disguises itself as enough to "throw the towel in" on this life stuff.
Until the fight, stemming from faith in all things soulful arises and ignites your will to keep functioning and you pry yourself off of your pillow and try to remember that you're on borrowed time.
Purpose.
The problem with overthinking everything is that nagging, never ending thought that needs to find the reasoning behind everything..especially when it comes to those gory details and secrets about your life that nobody knows about..(or is that just my life?) Sometimes life just simply ***** and you'll never know why. As long as you can lighten up and laugh about it, you'll keep yourself out of the 51/50 category and keep on truckin', just a little stronger than before. Pull the "good" out of every wretched fragment of your story and use it to broaden your perspective and become more accepting of the people around you.

As I come to the end of this spillage of my soul onto paper, in hopes that I can dwindle down the twisting of my thoughts enough to rest..I hope that I encouraged at least one person to live deeper and love fuller, allowing all things good to stretch beyond your circumstance and be an inspiration to someone struggling.
Lead with Love.

Shattered souls.
Shattered hearts.
Prayers that sunk into the earth, when I uttered those words on my knees at dusk.
Endless hours...of begging and pleading with fate.
Fate: 1. a prophetic declaration of what must be.
Death:  1. extinction; destruction: It will mean the death of our hopes.
Attempting to resurrect the shambles of the outcome of what was meant to crumble.

Waking up stronger than the day before, every time the sun rises and allowing life to entrench my soul and flourish.
Content with the past buried, never feeling the need to breathe hope into it.
Salving the wounds into beautiful memories and speaking life into what lies ahead.

We didn't lose each other, we gave up.
Mostly out of selfishness, anger the vein that pumped the rage into explosion.

Laying the crippling words to rest and forgiving all that is attached to it.

Freedom, the joy of letting go...has taken ages off of my already old soul.

Goodbye.

I fell numb again today..when I lost myself in the ripples of the ocean color blue.. in your eyes.
As I watched the nervousness.. masked in confidence.. in the furrow of your brow... cascade across your strikingly handsome face.
My heart beat against my chest, swollen from joy and lust..as I fell for the beauty of your soul.
Love.
We sat on the earth and soaked up the hues of red that began to saturate the evening sky.
I inhaled your scent again..hoping that it would flood my lungs, with even more desire than the night prior...not knowing if that was even rational.
Wrapping my legs around your waist..drawing you close as I craved the broadness of your perfectly muscular, strong back pressed into me.
Studying the lines of skillful art that shaped you..
I felt that familiar pull of desire inside of my abdomen..the sting of hunger, lust and passion ignited at my core..
Love.
The way you looked at me that morning..
When your gentle eyes welled with tears.. Our hearts began to beat at the same pace..connected..melding and melting in unison as you ****** your **** manliness as deeply as possible between my thighs.
Passion.
The yearning that swallows my thoughts throughout the days...
Imagination spinning..dreaming of your indescribably flawless body..walking toward me..enrapturing every ounce of desire contained within my being.. Owning me.
Hope.
Igniting the belief to dream..once again.
Of the smell of fall..the memories to be created.. your stoic gorgeous body..that cradles your beautifully fabricated heart..in the center of a fantasy, that is slowly unraveling into the reality in front of my very eyes.
You melt me.
Love. To Love again is truly divine.
To have the chance to love you..is surreal.

Im convinced, that the most powerful force on earth is Love.

Love. I fell in love with life.
Given the opportunity to open my eyes to a sunrise across a white sandy beach. Beaming rays rising, lifting my heart from the ache that devoured it these last few years. Love. I fell in love with the rain that fell upon my face as I danced with a stranger in the streets at nightfall..washing away the age I carried after my last heartbreak. Love. I fell in love with laughter as I allowed myself to wholeheartedly laugh from the belly and simply let go..being fully present with the smiles surrounding me and falling into the freedom of acceptance..
Love. I fell in Love with God again... as I soaked up all of the beauty that surrounded me...feeling the fabrication of each of these moments.."meant to prosper and not harm"
As I let go of the guilt of life's stumbling blocks.
Love. There's simply nothing..like authentic, genuine, pure, honest, real, absolute love.
It Heals, holds, lifts and reconstructs the heart, instills hope in the hopeless, fills the gaps where life's afflictions wear deep, and creates a warm invite of compassionate approval and a kindness so generous...it literally revives the Soul

I've written a thousand words that have trailed behind me for decades.
If I attempted to turn around and pick them all up as if I'm collecting shells from a beachside, it would be wheelbarrows full.

Write.
Just write Natasha.
Quit attempting to perfect this gift and just let it unravel.
Don't criticize, judge or feel
Guilt over your need to shut away and bleed the thoughts that you're unable to speak onto paper.

Release the fear that captivates you. It's that uneasiness in knowing the pain that spills once I form these words into being readable and they sink into my heart and become truth.
Truth equals pain for me.

It's the fear that this truth might just **** me.
Is it possible to die of a broken heart, I often ask myself.

Battling this fear to write this novel is the one thing holding me back from healing.

Allowing my entire being to sink into it, and rage against the words as if I'm the flat of the ocean being ravished by the never ending waves.

Tossed and turned by the emotions that come with the process that forces you to heal.

It's the still, that resides between each word written, that quiet space that leaves me restless.

Calm the infuriation, unclench your teeth and let the words be written into reality.

My need to burst into a blood pumping release that lightens my heart from this heaviness is enough to shake the floor of the ocean.

I sat next to him at my kitchen table, his left arm around my shoulder, my body pressed into his comforting cradle.
A warm silence filled the room..
Innocent childrens laughter in the distance.
I looked into his soft blue eyes..studied the creases of his crows feet...the natural age where stress had taken its toll...
He looked at me and ever so gently told me
"Your not a mistake, sometimes Gods plan is just bigger than what we realize"

My heart cracked..once again.
It was so loud this time it echoed in my ears..that familiar tightening began to form in my chest...as if my body was fighting to hold my heart together..the pain of grief shot into my throat..I was being strangled.. I fought as hard as I could not to break down and wail..Wail..Weep and Scream at my regrets..
The air was still..there was silence.
My eyes welled up with known tears...
I looked at him again..hoping he couldn't feel the fragments of my broken heart spilling into my skin...
I prayed again..silently..
Remembering...He is as close as the mention of his name..
Gods Grace laid between us..
I could feel his nestle..
His encompassing mercy fabricating this very moment.

He is the Healer.

I’m loving him with half a heart, this other half it’s lost.
In dreams I swim in while I sleep, when I wake it’s still gone.
When I close my eyes I’m searching for you, running through my past.
Breaking through strands of time just to hold you at last.
Floating down a river on my side you stood there in a suit, next to you a woman dressed in white and a baby between you two.
I called out to you and smiled and told you you’d have a boy of your own, I saw the joy on your face as I floated past down sorrows stream.

I guess this is the aftermath of sin and shame that I had once heard of. Never knowing that it was so real, I’m living in my pain.

Loving with half a heart while the other half is numb, is like playing a beautiful melody to the deaf, it’s as if it doesn’t exist.

I wake and remember where I am and with whom I share I my bed.
Looking at him while he sleeps, I remember you and your breath.
Calling his name, I’ve almost called yours more times than I can count, it’s like I’m stuck in times past and trying to break out of a glass clock.

That other half of my heart that’s lost within my sleep, please let me know when I can have it back and when I close my eyes there we’ll meet and again I’ll hold you as if it is the last.

Sometimes,
All you feel is the pain within the confines of your heart and you're convinced that what molded and made you this way, is all that you've got.
Sometimes the silence is the most treacherous noise and you're certain your lungs will cease to inhale again if you have to hear it any longer.
Sometimes the aching of healing makes you wonder if it's worth it.
We're all hurting to heal and longing for contentment in one way or another.
It's just, how do we get there from here?
And can my tattered soul and wounded heart make the trek?
Is it really, just live, hurt, attempt to be whole and then die?
Do we get to at least hold the ones we lost again at the end of this?
Is there some sort of resolute or lesson learned?
Or is this it?

Let me reach beyond this pit of seemingly endless darkness, pierce my hand through the roof of this imagined cave and grimace at the pain of the light that burns my skin. Claw to pull the weight atop that feels like a 500 lb. body that I've drug around for the last 3 and a half decades and whisper to myself that I can do this once again.
"Where did she go?"
I ask myself as if I'm literally searching for the girl that I once knew myself to be, as I stare at the blank sunken eyes in the reflection of the mirror. The woman who stood strong and built like an ox on that stage with the blinding lights and glimmer. The woman that carried her mothers ashes down those stairs that day from the crematory, picturing her frail body flung across her arms and once I let those ashes go, I never really let that weight off of me.
Weak.
Is the only word I feel that I have and I've wrapped myself within it and allowed my mistakes, anger, pain and loss engulf me.
"Where are you?"
I whisper again as I run back down the dark alleys of my thoughts in what seems to be a never ending run.
"Break free from this darkness"
I beg my heart to connect with my brain and ignite a fire in my soul once again.
"Mommy, I have to tell you something"
My little boy says in a playful, sweet endearing voice before he slips off to sleep.."I love you Mommy"
And my heart pierces and I pray that this jolt will ignite the fighting strength within me to rise back up and take on tomorrow as if it were my last day alive.
For now, I'll sleep.
I'll pray that I'll open my eyes at sunrise and this heaviness will somehow be lifted and I'll climb my way back through that black hole and I'll finally be able to fully embrace this gift that I've been given.

Those days, when the ache stuffed away under the laughs and small talk, smiles and cheerful chatter, starts to surface and you beg for it to go away, but that tightening in your throat seems to get stronger..constricting your breathing..sending your mind into a whirlwind and everything around you feels shaky.
Those days..
I know you can relate, if you couldn't, that first paragraph wouldn't have swallowed you whole when you read it.
Your heart feels so worn thin, that any small daily mishap brings you to tears.
Crying it out, until your emptied of the lull of life's pains, letting the salt just pour from your eyes and gush..let it well and burst as many times as need be..fall into the emotion until you force your heart to heal.
Pray...utter those words as if it were your last chance at taking another breath..drown out the forceful negativity that seems to devour you whole..allowing the love to suture you back together again and even though broken, so beautifully stitched and woven from purposeful pain and sleepless nights..paths that seemed to have no end and lives seemingly torn apart.
There's truth to the statement: Time heals all wounds.
After every eruption of the heart and continuous attempts to piece it back together..
The heart is formed again, just taking another shape .

I am broken.
Broken, to the depths of what has held me, to the inner function of my blood to run its course through my veins.
It's continual, every turn to a face of disappointment, every step toward hands reaching to me, an empty me. I'm lost, my nurturing motherly nature wanting nothing more than to sweep three tender hearts away into a life of security and home full of love where Gods grace lies on the floors where Mommy and Daddy's tears have wept on knees in prayer in the early mornings. Where six little feet touch that earth upon rising and can feel Peace...Peace...Gods loving arms wrapped around our hearts and guiding us.
I'm one woman, full of nothing.
Scraping by on scattered prayers and meaningless goals.
How can I guide these delicate hearts,  when upon opening mine at sunrise they flood hurt and continual tears? Is my faith so weak I haven't the strength to conjure up one ounce of prayer.
Joy, when I see my three beauties laughing, carefree and innocent, I feel joy.
What I'd give to snuggle up to them each morning and see their eyes light up with happiness, simply because I didn't have to work that day.
If I could rewrite this story of what has become the outcome of our lives.. I'd write it with caution, with sensitivity to Gods word, with a heavy momma heart and hands that reach to God with a face buried in prayer upon the opening of one eye at mornings dusk.
The crevasses, dark unending torturous valleys of discontentment and reflections of failure convince me again.. I'm unfit.
Yet the hearts I feel beating when I squeeze my beauties close on my chest and breathe in their full of life smiles...tells me I'm made for the role. Only a mama can hurt at the thought of her child hurting and worry about  the most minute details of their lives.
So I'll try, I'll try again today, to drown out the circumstances I've fallen into, push past the doubts that fear me, walk through the river of emotions that drop me to my knees, when I begin to cry, the tears that seem to have no end.
Despite this, I have life and am blessed.

If I'd bottled up every thought & ounce of sadness devouring me at this moment in time, it'd suffocate me.
When my chest actually feels the heaviness of hurt with every breath I inhale, I struggle to exhale...in the thought I'll be unable to retrieve my next breathe
Memories...of what was...what I needed it to be...hopes and aspirations for a home and family
Beat at my soul.
Death..it has died.. Grieving over the corpse of the thought of a love bond with him, that raised our little ones together & carried me into our elderly days..
But it was that..just a thought..
One that I conjured up in my need to feel safe..it never truly was..Love.
He never truly Loved...me.
Today I'll cry, I'll cry until I feel I've emptied my pain out of my chest and I can inhale fully again..