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We Call This Silence Home

Is it any wonder that my tongue is stolen

Across from you in this sustained darkness

A shudder running through me as I squirm

I am reaching my hands inside

Scouring the road to find the words

I am pulling them up through a rocky pass

Only for the rope at the top to snap

My words are stolen from me by our past

I am ill at ease in your quiet comfort

Sewn you easiness like patches in a quilt

I am begging to find a voice to raise

One louder than the wishes swirling below

Straining to hear above the ringing in my ears

I excuse myself; I am home, sitting in my bed

Wondering what it feels like to know how to Ask

We are nauseous at the thought that someone will see

We are closer to ruin than to winning at all

We are closer to death than living at all

We are closer to strangers than family at all

We were born islands away, universes apart

I will bury you unknown, history stolen in the night

Your death robs you of sight you never saw at all

Love perishes in isolation

It withers between words we use to hide who we are

Love shrivels and burns away as cold as the barrier we build

Love is a promise and a curse; it is a baton I walk from

Love is a castle I built to be blown over

Love is the saddest phrase I have ever known

I have never known an ache like I have known love

I have never known silence as loud as our love

I have never known what they mean when they say:

All you need is love

Hey, do you ever wonder why your house is never a home?

A Poem for Lost Time

There is an echoing wall
A collection of lost and found

A presence so heavy
It comes all at once and all around

When a conversation becomes a current,
An electricity, a capsule to transport freely
Through a looking glass to see
That small shy little girl, that little me

Not knowing why there was a chance
She’d be left behind at a dance
By a strong man, but no ability to cope
With a roomful of people, one absent of smoke
No liquor, no drink,
Is there even time to think?
Sights set on the door
Feet flying across that floor
And there I stood
Growing like wood
Into the floor below when every dad
Would ask me for a chance to dance

But I took up no space
I cheered and I clapped
I learned that a timer goes off
And instinct demands
Abandon ship
You can’t care how it ends

So I learned to run too
When things got hard
And the root cause barred
From my knowledge
And from your heart

I just wanted to know
I could say what I felt
And you would answer,
“I see, I will try to cope”

Because I do not need you by my side
I do not need you every day
I just need for you to stay
And tell me, “I’ll be glad to see you another day.”

Because when they built me
Brick by brick, mortarless
It was to weather more
And receive much less
But still I feel unendingly raw
When I can see underneath the underneath
That suddenness and confusion
This chaos that feels a lot like home
It takes me back to that place
Where I was small and I was shy
But still I had to try
To tell all the other men
“It is fine, my mom will come in the end.”

I have lived in a fantasy
Of stories far and wide
Of every character I could try
And knowing it was fantasy
Could not save me from the fate
Of choosing people who cannot stay
Not for a moment, not to be kind
Just “I’ll see you some other time.”
But time never comes, it passes on by
It drinks us up like slurpee in a cup
And all I ever wanted was to know:
I am important and I am enough
For someone to stay so I don’t have to be so tough
Because I am tired of filling the space
A space so vacant, so absent of heart
A space so lonely, vocabulary cloaking
With a breath perhaps, I will discard
That inherent need turn within
To leave that space so open
It allows the riff raff to slip in

Because I am enough and I am tough
I know now, I can handle when it’s rough
But who will sit with me
And pour me some tea
To sit in silence and appreciate
That relaxation will truly sate
Because I am enough and I am so tough
I can let go now and feel all this stuff
Those currents that echoed body and soul
Those voices that told me, “I am not whole”
Because all that I am and all that I’ve been
Is carried around with me in a bin
But I am ready to turn it in
And open up to what’s within
To face the stitching unbroken
A heart patched up, but the ultimate token
To be cherished and to be loved
Not just a toy on which to be tugged
I do not need you
I do not want you
But I could hear you
Hear that heart which beats below
Everything you think you need to stow
Because the most tragic thing is this
I will not know you, it’s a chance we’ll miss
Because we are all so afraid to sit
In our pain and in our pits
Of despair so lonely we shout out
And hear the echoes all around
Of everyone who came before
And transported us right back
To before we knew we were more
More than enough, more than our stuff
More than our pain and more than our bluffs
We are more than enough
But when will we finally open up

Because if we don’t
We’ll only be haunted
By echoes and ghosts
Of all who could not cope
Of all who knew that they were more
And finally, I am unmoored from this floor

A/N: Do you ever catch yourself in old habits and finally know what should change? I know that I think a lot about how connected everything is but I would never call it overthinking because it’s the right amount of thinking to take me to where I need to go next.

A Child’s Function

Children are not born with jobs

But I was born to provide, a function

To this family of mine, to be

born with eyes to see, everything

All the cracks and broken wings

And I have seen them pour

What they can, into the cups

Of all who came before, and yet

For themselves, they leave dust

In isolation they place their trust

An isolation that feels so free

They locked the door

And threw away the key

I was born with the capacity

To fill my brain to brim

With every word and phrase

That might resuscitate

those feelings within, they have

long ago shut down as sin

I was born to be a healer

But I was left in pieces

And yet still so loved

By all who saw, the beating

Heart which should not thrive

Still yet it grew, with jagged edges

Like a garden of thorns, overgrown

In a bed of sweet roses

And these jagged pieces, they had

whittled so well, began to pierce

my allies and leave instead, enemies

of small, large, and middling size

For my enemies were clever too

They were slick and from there they slipped

As thin strips of soft metal, smoothly navigating

this garden maze, a straight shot to find

the petals within, and in these enemies

I poured all my love and hopes

Leaving behind, only what

Was sharp and rough but could not cope

Because I have had a function

To see with eyes that pierce

The veil of apathy they wear so well

I thought it was their face at first

And yet the veil does speak

There is an outcry from behind

A voice from which I cannot turn

When I can pour so much more

Into this emptiness I see before

And so I love them even more

Because I was not taught

Children do not have a function

They do not provide a need

They are allowed to exist

And grow with love

Without pouring into mother’s cup

They are allowed to exist

In blindness to the emptiness

Of a father’s still beating heart

They should be taught, to fill

Themselves before they come along

To those whose cups lie still

There are children whose ears

Do not hear the melancholy ache

Of a silent heart that can only take

And so I cry for myself, for all

who I encounter, for all the cries

I hear that I must leave unanswered

Because my function is not to heal

My function is to live and live in love

A love so bone deep, I can fill my cup

Because I can lift my veil and the truth I see

Is I was not born with sharper eyes or better ears

It is that I was pushed, and I was shoved

Into a hole so small, I was molded

Into the tool I thought I was

A hole so small they could fill my cup

And believe they had in fact given me enough

Do you ever break your own heart? Asking for a friend.

“You’ll Miss Me When I’m Dead”: A Mother’s Lament

I am filled with an idle sense of ongoing grief over my relationship with my parents. The worst part about growth and perspective is the people you leave behind in the process. For me, two of those people were always going to be my parents.

“I don’t need therapy, I’m going to die like this.” I’ve heard this from my mother multiple times in the last few years. Not only is that a bold assertion that between now and your death, you do not intend to grow, but it’s also the sharpest dagger you could wield against someone you claim to love. To their face, you are telling them you do not want to be better for them. You are telling them they are not worth the difficulty in initiating change.

One of my mother’s favorite things to tell us is: “You’ll miss me when I’m dead.”

The truth is, I miss her now. I, so distinctly, feel the absence of the intimate connection you are designed to have with your mother. When I need comfort, I turn to myself. I turn to my dog. I turn to a hug from my nephew. I turn to a FaceTime with my best friend.

This is the ongoing state of grief. Physically, she is present. Financially, she pops up for help when she can. Emotionally, I have never been able to depend on her. The cost of this absence was the building blocks to every opportunity for intimacy I sabotaged between high school and now. The cost of this absence was the people I chose who mistreated and devalued me. The cost of this absence was the deeply rooted belief “you are too much and no one will understand you.” Letting go of the idea that I can only depend on myself has been an ongoing ordeal. Like her, I have participated in the self-abandonment necessary to believe I am better off alone.

I have allowed myself to eat crumbs off the floor to feel the validation I should have been instilled with from the beginning. With my mother, it is not a question of whether she will hurt me but when. Most conversations are laid with hidden mines of triggers. The worst part is always the few times we truly can have deep conversations because it perpetuates the illusion of intimacy. She’s right, when she’s dead, I’ll miss her. I will grieve her loss. I will also grieve the relationship I always wanted but could never get.

I want to meet you,
With love in my heart.
I want to meet you,
With a shard of who I am.
This fractured bit,
I saved for this moment.
Which train did you catch?
Did you book a one way?
You’re further out to horizon,
Pushing farther and farther.
Say you’ll hop off and walk.
Slip out the back with an excuse.
Just say you’ll walk back to me,
So I can meet you with love.

I have endeavored to learn everything I could about mental health and trauma to better understand not just myself but also my family. My mother laments the sour edges of our relationship, but she will take no action to improve it.

The worst lie I ever told myself was that I can live with less because someone else can’t provide more. The truth I’ve had to accept is that I allowed this mindset to permeate my life for too long. The connections I want now are deep and real. I am valuable, important, and worthy of effort. You can always choose to pivot. There is always opportunity to change. You can admit that you want more from life than what you have witnessed around you. There is no reward without risk. Admitting your vulnerabilities, your wants, and your desires is powerful and necessary. Healing from trauma is a gift you give to yourself and the world around you.

I never like to give power to my trauma. I am not grateful for it. I am grateful for how I took control of my interiority and how I have grown from it. So is it a tragedy or a flex that no one has or will ever break my heart like my own mother has before?