Prayers

Apr 8, 2015

Once Love Bears a Weight .............

I found this poem in one of my journals.  I found it mostly written and dated from 11-25-2007.   I didn't work much more on it, because most of it felt just right.  It could still use some work but it's 7 years old already.  If it's ever going to see daylight, this is it.


My mother had passed 2 1/2 years before.  I was a single mother with 4 children still at home, with all the chaos that brings.
I had started drinking coffee and given up sleeping an entire night.  I had learned to appreciate the quiet of the night and the comfort of having all your children in your home, asleep in their own beds.  I was already starting to panic about those days passing so fast.
It seemed like just when I got the routine down, the routine would change and everybody would need different stuff.  It drove me ca-raaaaaaazy.

Thanksgiving was either looming or just past with Christmas looming and in those years I was having a very hard time getting into the holidays.  A very. hard. time.  Apathy had already set in and Abigail, who would be born (possibly) to snap me out of that, would still not be born for the better part of a year.  Times were dark.

I was having trouble coming to terms with the fact that nothing would ever be the same again whilst simultaneously trying to pretend that nothing had changed and we were all fine.  I don't, and didn't, and may never even know why.  It's what I did.  From what I can remember.  I am glad I lived through them.  Do what you want, if you find yourself in that place.  There is no right way that I know of.

Anyway, I like it.  I don't even really know what it's about, but I like it and all that was going on at the time.  I was 42 years old when I wrote this.

Once Love Bears A Weight......


This time of year
I weep slow tears
Unexpectedly


Slowly becoming aware
of missing some thing
instead of some one


Becoming at home
with being alone
Finding comfort in darkness and moonlight

Taking joy in the time
That God sets aside
for the night to acknowledge it's secrets.

The tears are unbidden
Within, joy is hidden
Portents of healing and burdens

Once love bears A weight,
A name and A shape,
You realize last chances come often.

Turns out I am a cold blooded, vicious killer......

The first week of being 50 has high-lighted an odd but notable new awareness of my ruthless side.  Of course I've got one, at least one.  Some need to be curbed and some need to be encouraged.  One, though, has been honed to an actual skill.  That's right, I said it.  

Life has a way of wearing you down.  It smoothes the edges of your nerves, especially if you are a mother, or spend much time with adults who are *not* adults.  Life numbs you to many things in life that by the time you are 50, you don't even think twice about anymore.  

"Oh, sweetie!  It's okay if you missed the potty!  I will just clean that right up.  It happens to all of us.  You still did good"............"Oh, you 'forgot' your homework for the 4th time this week and want me to just run home and bring it to you?  All right, but this is the last time!"..............."You punched another hole in the wall?????!!!!!  Well.  You know how to fix it."............."Yes, that is a dent in my fender.  Fix it?  Why????"...........

I am seriously telling you to take heart.  By the time you get to 50, I am promising you that you will take all of the above examples, and countless others, with a grain of salt but no second thoughts.  It's very relaxing.

But some things you will not become numb to.  Some things will make you dig in your heels, stiffen your spine, grab a weapon and literally kill things.  Living things.  You will fight to the end, some things, and you will still lose, but you will. not. care.  The battle simply must be fought.

The flies are thick, and I realized the other day that I have turned into a cold blooded, vicious killer.

I always thought I could be one but now I know for sure that I not only *can*.  I *am*.


Like a professional cold blooded, vicious killer, I go on killing "patrols".  At least 3 every day.  Morning, noon, and night, I grab the fly swatter and stalk my prey down like the maggots they are.  I stalk sunny places like window sills and splashes of sunlight on floors.  One by one I kill them.  I swear, some of them come back to life.  I can remember a time when if there was a fly in the house it was just one or two, and I would grab a tissue to clean up their dead bodies and deposit them in the trash.  Then I would go on with my life and think of such nastiness no more.  THOSE DAYS ARE BEHIND ME NOW.  I did not watch the clock or go on "killing patrols".  Now I do.  I guess that's part of being old, or grown up, or something.  I am just reporting the facts here, I still do not know any secrets of the universe.

I don't know if it's the cows or the beautiful but stinking tree next to the house that showered us recently with so many lovely petals, but the flies are everywhere, all the time.

Lately all I have grabbed is the fly swatter, no tissues, delivering death blows, like a professional cold blooded, vicious killer; without remorse.   Then--(and this is probably the point of admitting you need help, for any cold blooded vicious killer, not that I need any help)---just letting their bodies lay where they fall. 

 I give them no respect.  I think no more of their dead bodies than dust in the wind.  Their dead bodies are nothing to me.  NOTHING.  I have a machine to suck up the carnage and I know how to use it.  I am the proud owner of a shop vac also.  I got this. Just the last part of the job for a cold blooded vicious killer like myself.

***throws back head, throws arms to the sky, and laughs like James Earl Jones*** 

Like any professional, cold blooded, vicious killer,  later there will be a cleanup patrol, destroying all evidence. 

Like a professional, cold blooded, vicious killer, after I have chased down and killed all my prey, delivering death blows right and left, I just grab the vacuum and suck them up.  There are quite a lot, and, horror of horrors(!), some are not completely dead.  You can tell when they sense the snout of the great vacuum-to-the-sky getting close.  They twitch, their disgusting little legs move.  I sneer at the quivering little blobs.  Perhaps I just stunned them, or broke a wing or something.  The little vermin still live.  So I SMASH them once more, really good.  Their guts smoosh all out and leave disgusting marks on my refrigerator and all I feel is powerful and happy that I have bleach.  

And I am a cold blooded, vicious killer.  Life has turned me that way.  I have no remorse.  I even take pride in my work.  Knowing that this job will not end any time soon does not discourage me.  It's just what I do.

Just one more facet to 50.  Thought you should know.

**also my cousin says that I can go to the feed store and get an automatic fly killer spray thing that automatically squirts like those automatic kind and I will not see a live fly again in my house.  Sounds like a fairy tale, doesn't it?  I am going to explore this possibility.  You may want to explore that possibility yourself, before you end up a cold blooded, vicious killer like myself.  But that may be a required standard that you have to pass before you die.  I feel better for it, at any rate.   Just sayin.