Some days I’m floored
Some days it’s still a shock
Some days I’m so happy I cry
because I never thought I would be
There’s so much I would love to tell you
and so much you already know
Your belief in me has remained
after your death
Your hugs have lasted
longer than from when you let go
I miss you mum
But I feel you in my life
stronger than ever
I’m becoming myself
and you’re right there
You’d be so proud of me

I only find out
three years after you died.
So far as I knew, you were still out there,
scamming and scheming,
racking up more debts you’d never pay,
dreaming up your next dodgy deal,
the bonanza you knew was your birthright.  
Three years on, I learn that you’re dead.
I shouldn’t be sad about it.  
The unvarnished truth of it is
you were a bit of a *******:
a con man, a crook;
a lousy business partner, a nightmare debtor,
a negligent father, a faithless husband, 
a bad boss and a shady friend.
You didn't even like Champagne; 
you just liked other people seeing you drink it.
Yeah, you were a *******,
but you were our *******.
Our Fagan, our Black Beard, our
cockney Don Corleone,
lurid legend of the tabloids and consumer shows
with your Montecristo cigars and malapropisms,
your E-types and your excesses,
your bankruptcies, both financial and moral.  
You looked after us.  You took us in.
Any port in a storm,
and those were stormy times,
and - although it came close - we didn’t drown.
Perhaps it’s gratitude, or
misplaced loyalty,
that pinches uncomfortably somewhere inside me,
when I hear about how you went.
It should have been different.
There should have been some last stand,
a blaze of dubious glory, a final reckless burn
as you rode one right off the cliff edge.  
It shouldn’t have been so small, so dismal,
so unremarkably tragic.
Back in the day, I wasn’t even sure you could die;
I figured you’d just move on and start up
some new franchise operation,
reincorporated under a new name, in a new town.  
But when I heard you were dead,
I think what shocked me most
was finding out it wasn’t suicide.

A thousand situps and
a punch in the stomach
Crossing the finish line
of a one hundred meter sprint
Catch your breath
Don’t be sick

Trying to ***** your heart
out of your mouth
Hands around your throat
Vice clamped around your head
Can’t breathe
Can’t breathe

Everything goes quiet
but it’s noisy still
Somebody said it
They mentioned her
but they didn’t know it

Quick as a breath there’s a
brick in your stomach and
hands around your throat
An Army rucksack
thrown on your shoulders
Your heartbeat aches

Stood still in the centre of a hurricane
Life happening around you

You face her
But you can’t reach her
You feel her
But you can’t touch her
She’s right there with you
But you still miss her

Silence
Oh sweet silence
Silk to my ears
Cocoon of light
In a stormy world
Seep into my skin
Flow into my bones
Melt my muscles and
Lift my soul

My thoughts are loud enough
Without the chaos of the world

In sync they walk arm in arm
Along the tracks of an unused farm
Stabbing pains are in my chest
As I see their love at its best
Little do they know the joy they radiate
Or the pain in my heart from my own mothers fate

I wish that was me
That sweet synergy
Of arm in arm
Love in love
Together
Bonded
More than
The sum of its parts

“I’m here” she said
Through the warm breeze
“I’m right here my beautiful”
So reassuring
So magical
So you
Don’t hold it in
Don’t hold it in
It’s okay

Twenty-one years ago,
I was running my last speech tournament,
Serving this community of brilliant young people
Who spent our weekends
Telling other people’s stories
In cluttered classrooms
Of empty schools,
Longing to touch another human
To bring tears or laughter
With just our words
And the spaces between them.
And when the awards had been issued,
And our guests departed,
We seniors told our own stories,
Shared our own tears and laughter
As we prepared for what comes next.

I was not prepared for what came next.

Twenty-one years ago,
I walked into a house too brightly lit
For the middle of the night
Confused by the presence of people
I didn’t live with
Who looked away when they found my eyes.
And someone kind led me to my mother
Who held me tightly when I screamed
Over
And over
And over
That he shouldn’t have been out,
That this was stupid,
That... just... no.
And I sat on the swing
With a friend who could listen
And found my words lost
To the spaces between them.

Twenty-one years ago,
My story changed.
My tears changed.
My laughter changed.
Like the song I used to play on the piano
That includes a note the key no longer sings.


And today,
I use words
To remember.

I found my grandmother the night she died
The room filled with mourning tears
My mother slapped me
because I hadn't cried in two days
At 18 how do you emotionally process a body that once held a life?

Disconnected from my thoughts
I felt neither pain nor love nor loss
How could I say that, without feeling defective
but I couldn't get past that shell with empty eyes
that stared at me until I noticed they weren't smiling

When the body turned to flesh
she was gone and I was lost
in those empty eyes that seemed to
hold a universe of nothing
and if I stared too long I'd disappear in that void
where her light used to shine

**

Too soon, I held my mother's hand as she passed
and watched the life leech out of her skin
The eyes were the last part of her to fade
I stared at her
Willing with all that I am that they would
spark and reignite the fire of who she was
But her skin ran cold the second the light ceased
So cold, yet so very soft.

Two days, and a blended family to hold up
Even with makeup, dressed to the nines
It didn't feel less... wrong
She was beautiful, but she wasn't my mother

I couldn't escape the knowledge
of invisible sutures
As I held her face and fixed her hair
I cursed those television shows I once watched with her
The ones that taught us how things worked
The ones that burned the knowledge of
the sutures into my memory
a memory I couldn't escape

Four days and two shoulders heavy with tears
Too busy with paperwork and wishes
to bleed tears of my own
Thankful for things to do
So I wouldn't get lost in her empty eyes
that stared at me whenever I closed my own

I sit here, grown, wondering how to
emotionally process a body that once held a life?
Praying that she will slap me for not being able to cry
Just so I could feel her