I learned long ago
How to leave my body
Escape what was
Incomprehensibly horrific
I saved my own life
Salvaged my sanity
(Such as it was)
But there’s a price to be paid for such traveling
You cannot escape the bad
Without missing out on the good
I could leave my body
At any time today
But I choose not to
I have other ways to cope
That don’t cost so much
I take a deep breath
Connect to all who’ve been before
Feel my mother’s mother’s heartbeat in mine
What I yearn for
I don’t always understand
Whose dreams am I living
Are they of the present or the past
Where is she
I sit on the bed and wait
Eyes closed, heart in hand
Try again to conjure
The girl I once was
The one before
Before you
Before it
Where is she
Where am I
I don’t need a mnemonic device to remember you
You’re literally etched into the stone of my being
I couldn’t get rid of you if I tried
And believe me, I have, with all my might
Tried. To. Forget. You.
No priest could exorcise you from my soul
Nor surgeon excise you from my spirit
We are inextricably linked, now, forever
I have learned to grow around you
Like a tree around a stone.
She held her breath and waited
Looking for a permit to be who she really was
For someone to say, OK, now you can be you
It never occurred to her it was her choice
Until it was almost too late
She released her breath and stepped forward
Into the beauty of the unknown
And went to see who she would find inside
Who’s there, yearning, in pain
In the dark of my past
I look behind and see
The silhouettes of the many
From whose dreams I was born
I feel their unrealized needs
In the needs of my present
What they have not let go of
Holds me now, outside of my life
I see you, I say
I’m sorry, I say
This is yours, I say
I lay their burdens at their feet
Look them deeply in their eyes
Thank you for dreaming my life
I’ve got it from here
Too many voices within
An unwelcome cacophony
Disparate threads collide
Influence my life strategy
Others’ conversations
Nag and berate, then subside
Get still, they said, and listen
You will hear your Self inside
It’s the quiet one underneath
Just make some space within
So I tried to push the static aside
I didn’t value what it had to say
Tried to drown out those others’ voices
That had somehow become a part of mine
And in doing so, I lost my way
But now I know their message is important
They just need to be heard and known
Like a feeling just wants to be felt
They need to not feel all alone
So now I listen to the threads
One by one, I unravel each song
I give back those not mine to those who sang them first
Tell them I’ll always carry their song in mine
No longer at odds, there is now harmony
My voice resonates with many voices as one
And the music of my soul makes perfect sense to me
You kissed the scars
The carvings he made
On the inside of my thighs
Ugly remnants of his violence
And just like that
I felt the wound heal
Red, raw angry skin
Became baby-smooth again
“I’ve forgotten how to be in my own body,” she said
“I feel like I have woken up in a foreign land”
I took her by the hand
Led her down the the sea
“Sit down and let the waves remind you,” I said
We lay back, and with closed eyes
Became one with the ocean
The undulation, the caress and push-pull
We let ourselves be swallowed
And we became mermaids again
Bodies arching, diving
Arms moving through the water
Embracing the flow of the tide
She started crying tears of deeply relieved joy
And so then did I, to see her find home again
Our salt tears mixed with the salt of the sea
And when we finally returned to the shore and found our legs again
We took the ocean with us in the sway of our hips
And the pulse of our hearts
Forlorn once was I
No hope was in sight
I’d fought hard to live
But felt I’d lost the fight
Were it not for my cats
Wouldn’t’ve made it through
How sad that’ve been
For I’d never’ve met you
Beyond the Skinny Branches 