I was given a gift; the gift of guilt.
To use freely and often.
I did. I do.
A member of the club that no one wants to join.

My gift is pretty
Dependent on words.
On thoughts.
On her, him, them.

On sticking plasters carefully stretched
Over still weeping wounds.
Quiet now.
Yet visibly hidden.

love simply is
given without expectations
holding my baby girl

our hearts beat as one
our chests close together
the falling and rising of our chests
synching into a rhythm

our hearts are dancing as one
with it's unique individual flavor
and adding spice and fun into my solitary life
my heart skips a beat

our breaths go in and out
falling and rising like the great ocean
always flowing with mysterious motion
each breath unique and new

I wrote all these words,
when I could have simply said
"I love you"

You killed my heart, what did you do to me? My own skin seems someone else’s, and these eyes, they seem like strangers glaring back at me. When my nails tap the porcelain leaned against my waist they echo harshly. I feel my hair that somehow feels like straw. The long strands wire down like rope. When once I knew warmth there is only distance, not even the cold.

How long to have gone without that touch so pure. ******* to the lungs drawing in this air, my breath is taking an eternity leaving my chest. This self knows nothing of it. What has it done to me, this life of this body it longs so dearly to complete the song of her mother. I chose not to make it exist, like all the ones before them. We just are. Sometimes we take that life, this blood surging for naught, pretending it had meant nothing.
These glazed eyes, my callous soul seen too much knows too little. Oh this curse of blessed life. This blessing is cold to my nose pressed against the glass, blowing fogged stains. When will I know this comfort of loving what someone else chose to exist? I didn’t know what it took to keep inhaling, this sacred air, and these holy breaths. The decrepit guard of clergy took these words from us. Outside our choice, much like our parents, our creators, separate from our will. What are we then, but helpless children flailing in thin air?
I gave it all my being, that my teeth and tongue meant for sacrifice of sacred love that was my choice yet not a choice to want, merely whom to give it to. To give and not taking is all that is necessary for me. I never wanted to want, from him, the clear brown eyes that he hurt, though it ended up this way. Feeling hands, soft skin and the touch of warmth. Our starving bodies knew our desires.

The cold glass of this mirror, stripes and wipes on top of my reflected eyes looking back, she confronts me with my own emptiness. What was real will remain past, my distance dystopian darkened light. The porcelain gleams around my veined hands, and I had warmth dissipating to it. My lips once told long stories and cradled my voice through darkness, caressed his skin and soft hairs to sleep. But what am I now, if only I can recount these miseries? That I had not my visor on my own heart but on his bliss and pain. Who can I tell when I am alone what happiness once meant to me? How the joy comes from fleeting concerns and then leaves without a word for parting. I know they will come back to dance with me in the night kissed grass. My bare feet have taken its colour, and when they get cold the veined hands hold them in their cradling motions. The moon comes out to greet this marvellous sense of awareness and freedom until she sets before the sun again. This night air knows that I know her. When I was solitary once and knew all inches of my own heart. No one in sight, chipping away pieces with the chisel I gave him. No one knows my heart so I will teach myself yet again to see it as it is.

Me. Myself. My reflected image.

© March 31st

* * *
baby girl
grown up now
again on her own
magnificent in her being
has become a tortured soul

some things don't seem fair
shouldn't have happened this way
are things as they should be?
that's what the wise ones say

watching your
sweet love child struggle
to make it through each day
such heart break to see a life
unfold this way

I hope and I pray
I hope and pray each and every day
she will choose this life
that she will choose to stay



Copyright © 2014 Christi Michaels.
All Rights Reserved.

little girl
your tiny breaths
contain the breath of life

as you doze
a whole universe inside of you
is expanding and bursting into life

I cannot shield you from
the joys and pains of life
but what I can be is a
stable and consistent
loving presence in your life

I will try to stay in the now
and not get all bent out of shape about
puttin' the fear of God in the boys and/or girls you date
for now, I will be a sane daddy that
holds you while you gently sleep

just remember when daddy gets a little crazy
I still love you

I will try to remember the same when
me and mommy stay up late at night waiting for you
hold you and soothe you as you cry out through the night
and even when you grow up and say "I hate you."
I will say "thank you. I love you."

but for now, I am glad you are just dozing in my arms
a tiny little being without a care in the world
daddy is here to change your poopy diapers
and rock you to sleep

Ink drops black, my soul infecting
Into water invading purity
Foreign substance contradicting
Clarity clouding, dark arching tentacles
Swirling about, twirling twisting
Depictions tempting
Hanging
In grotesque formation
Beautiful in their horror
Entrancing in their mingling

Each drop fresh transgression
My life’s cup growing darker
Liquid limbs of the ****** flailing
A dance of warning—that
I should become one of them if not
To filter disease of this breath

Faces
Fluid forming in inky swirl
Screaming, crying my name
Those here before me
Warning of my impending damnation
Singing anguish
Their tears impotent to cleanse
The stain that is my life

To undo that so long ago done
A power to remove the tint of my soul
Considered endlessly
If there be a time too late for
Men whose lives were spent foolishly
Their warning unheeded
Threat becoming promise pending
Hope’s defeat
A threat of doused despair

Favour despite nightmare’s creeping
An infant born
Filling cup further though
Not with night but with love
Salvation’s sacrifice
Understood, seen in the tiny smile
Of a child

Infant hands
gripping thumbs.
Tired arms encircling adult neck.
Your first smile,
first laugh—
first tooth, step, and word, our
first shared glance.
Moments, landmarks of your life, the
joy of my own.

Infant eyes so full
of wonder,
even the meagre astounds.
Constellations,
planets and moons, asteroids
creeping through space,
world destroyers and raisers of new.
The universe, its
infinitely vast magnificence, at
molecular level iris comprised.
The pupil—centre ajar
serving soul's route,
a window into 'nother realm, the
place of spirit's hailing.
True self temporarily encased,
the pathway to which
in resides of corporeal existence
the pith of life.
Your eyes—as much wonder possessed
as perceive.

A wish;
you might stay young forever, each
day spent together, that
your innocence,
your heart, may
never know break's suffering.
That cheek, tear might never dampness vandalize.
Your life—unspoiled joy,
mere childish disappointment to claim,
might always remain.

A shelter from hate,
from hunger and strife.
The broadcasts of the world
that their weighty burden might never
find home upon tiny shoulder.
In my palm, Atlas' strength I possess,
to keep at bay
war—its further result.
Disaster.
Death,
thunder wind lightning,
the monster under your bed.
The fear of all things fear inciting,
a paladin whom you I serve.

But in that wish
I might deprive,
an incalculable love—life's
blessed comprise.
The force by which
a patriarch's drive—
the reason for being.
By selfish pinning of youth,
fulfilment you may never know

As much to protect you,
I do myself.
A fear of my own finale.
Residing forever in this happy dream.
Terror realized,
contrary to that my inevitable absence—that
I might never leave you, but
that you might never leave me.
My son, I love you, and
in time you will see.