Today …

So, Today,

I went out to the place where my children are buried.  I cannot do this often, but I still must do it sometimes, or the press of the sadness and pain would bury me, would hold me tight in Earthen arms.  So I walk past the Garden, and into the Yard, this place removed, but still a place, this moment when I stop to hide my sorrows, yet, still choose to remind myself of what was, instead of what is.

And do you know what happened?

I was scared.

You are …

For all that my head says , for all that is logical and rational, I still long for the time when I can see my babies again, when I can hold them forever.

(when I can stop crying enough to bury you, when I can stop wanting to kiss the pain from your lungs, your lips, your ears, your tongue, your heart)

                     (Your Liver …)

If had the gumption that you had ….

If I could wear my eyes in shades of yellow and smudge the khol just right …

If I could.

But,

I still went.

Your Flowers

The rose that I planted for your sister, for half of your skin, for half of the chromosomes you share (and we share {and all of us together}), that rose, she was thriving, she grew a blossom for every death last year, all Thirteen.  All Thirteen.

And your rose was dying, and in that moment when I hacked the soil, tore the clay with my fingertips, all I could remember was that I wasn’t enough.  I wasn’t enough to keep the cancer from spreading, to keep you and your sister safe from this world.  I wasn’t enough to bring you back (because when I saw your body, I forgot everything, and all I could do is scream, and scream.) {and I screamed instead of doing anything, even though it was too late already}

How do You Write an Ode To a Feeding Tube?

Because that was when I told you, you looked like a TellieTubby, with that thing sticking out of your neck, and you laughed so hard that you peed yourself, and then, we laughed so hard that I nearly did the same.  How am I supposed to explain this, three years after, when the appropriate time, as set by those mad white men has passed, and I should say, ” Oh, it happened, but now I am fine.”

(i am not fine)

But … (part 2)

There was this dragonfly, like you used to dream, like you used to follow, and  know the meaning,  This dragonfly alit upon that dying rose, and all I wanted to do was walk away (how cruel?).

But I didn’t.

I followed the hacksaw wings across the yard and back, and all the time asking, “what is it you want me to see?”

I followed the dragon (fly), until the crossing, until the moving through that unknown barrier which separated you twins, you sister, brother, and me.  And the dragon held fast on the limb of a butterfly bush, when I told you, told your familiar (and out of familiarity),  “I cannot follow, I cannot go where you are going.”

It was a Monarch,

I got distracted from following your OgunWings, like blades of precision, slicing me through, remembering the bone and marrow, the fin and fur, the womb and placental rupture that brought you both close, for a time.  Your sister, always smarter, always one step ahead of everyone, she distracted my with her vibrancy, to let you get away, to know beyond Mother.  I watched her fly away, rose petals trailing from the distinction of her purpose, the Mary of her Heart.

I looked away.

(like that morning, like that morning I slept without catching the sun.)

I looked away, and when I looked back, the dragon was gone.

I cannot follow you.

It seems so simple.

(that I still want to follow)

And as I walked back to the walls, I saw, for the first time in the forever since she was seeded, my Passion Flower has what might become,

A Blossom.