Quiet
not
the
raging mouths that scream
differently
tuned
songs,
which burst
with
conviction, with outrage,
with
words you’ve
never held
between
skull and teeth.
Living
words (and people) will
not
be muzzled
without
cruelty (or war)--
unsaid
words
fight
to become.
Let
them
(we
must)
be
something,
do
something,
say
something...
or
lose
everything.
The
Scream, by Edvard Munch
– for
Poets and Storytellers United (Friday Writings #143: What Makes You Scream?)
This
flesh is mine; it has bled, spilled pain
that
helped me turn darkness into fuel.
You
pretend to understand my ways, but you don’t feel
what
lives outside your festering skull.
No,
I no longer know (or care) why you have become
you--someone
whose absence is celebrated by most.
– for
Poets and Storytellers United (Friday Writings #140: Things That Aren’t So Scary “anymore”)—once upon a time, when I was young and more than a wee bit naïve, I found
darkness terrifying. The same was true for how I felt about hurting the
feelings of individuals who didn’t quite deserve my worries. Life and
experience changed my views on both counts… drastically.
not-quite Journaling, 72
There is a party in my mouth (grapefruit + hope)
tastes like victory.
7/2/2024: My cancer treatment is over. I’ve taken my last estrogen blocker. I’m giddy and nervous
and grateful and cautiously happy. I celebrated with a grapefruit (all
right, with three grapefruits). After six years, tasting (no,
devouring!) the citrusy delight was nearly orgasmic. Now, my flesh and bones and spirit and I will work on
reclaiming other pleasures cancer treatment has kept from us. I will reclaim
where I can and adapt where I cannot.
sunflower
on a cloudy day,
what a gift!
7/16/2024: My Piano Man gifted me 13 small journals (yep, he totally
enables my 13-is-the-awesomest-number-in-the-multiniverse obsession). I
couldn’t decide which to use first (they’re so pretty!). Then the phrase
on one of the covers, “We can begin by doing small things…” made my choice
for me. Other quotes, carrying similar messages, are scattered on the
pages--reminders that tiny ideas are seeds for gigantic doings. I’m trying to
find my way again, after so many years of being mostly ill all the
time, so I can use all the reminders I can get. Also, I LOVE starting a new journal! 😁
7/18/2024: Because every now and again, people promising help convince themselves that said help looks a lot like the box (cage?) they’ve built of their own beliefs. I hate cages--no matter how pretty (or seemingly well-intended) they might look.
– for
Poets and Storytellers United (Friday Writings #136: “begin by doing small things”)
A
breast
cancer
scare hits hard
and
fast--twisting, twisting,
twisting…
the mind and gut
and
leaving the heart feeling
drained, displaced, desolate.
Those
terrible days
(the ones that snail by
while
your world is waiting,
waiting,
waiting… to learn
if
life is really rotting
inside the walls of your being)
those
days are soul eaters.
But
after
the
almost-apocalypse is done,
when
healers chant,
“You’re
fine. You’re just fine”,
your world grows less bleak--
flesh
and blood and bone exhale,
and
the spirit blossoms
(differently) anew.
- someone asked me, “Are you excited to get back to your normal
life now that breast cancer is gone?” I told them that I wasn’t sure ‘getting
back to normal’ was a realistic option for me. Later, after I had some time to
think, I sent them a quote from Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book, to explain
that after breast cancer, ‘it’s like your life breaks into a million pieces and
when you put them back together, they don’t quite fit exactly the same.” Surviving
(and thriving after the Breast Cancer Monster), requires hope,
determination, self-love… and enough creativity to craft ourselves a new
normal.
- I wrote the first version of this poem years ago; time
has changed bits of it (and me).
– for
Poets and Storytellers United (Friday Writings #134: It’s
a Dirty Job)
