Lately

I'm finding faith

Between

Questions

And

Self-laced intentions,

Like a dot to dot

Painting insanity

Or something else.

So I interrogate

My eyes

And why they bend

And spin

Light as they do.

Is anything real?

So I will follow

my greed

Into the foundation

Of everything

I will never know,

And create night

With eyelids and hope.

And I will see her

As more than

An outline,

When I can trace

nothing

But darknes,

Peeling like scars

From from the center

Of me.

I peak back out

At the dawn.

And i wish I

I could see everything

Like this.

And follow the greed.

The truth is,

Being wrong

Is fucking

Beautiful.

Because she looks good

In both outfits.

If only I could

Also

See

Myself.

Dapper as fuck

In my confusion.

Maybe truth

Would never

Drop beneath the horizon.

But when it comes

To her,

You always squint

At the fucking sun.

She drove a purple '98 Pontiac Sunfire, and the other day, I saw a video that was spoofing those. It made me laugh out loud, and I tried to send it to her, but then I was reminded that she's gone.

She isn't dead, but she may as well be.

I could use the internet as my Ouija board, but I've seen those movies.

If I open that closed door, devils will certainly step in.

I'm haunted enough.

I content myself with chuckling about her old car. Meanwhile in my mirrors, ghosts of the past appear closer than they are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZjGVaI9D7o

She was Tennessee and Virginia

You could see it in her smile.

Drifting in and out of here and there. A mushroom haze of mental health. One trip away from skippin’ out…on life and love and music. But, this hotel room smells like weed and sex and we’re both too lost to understand. We missed that this is as good as it gets. Stupid in love and high and hopeful and too old to believe in fairy tales.

I lean myself back, against the cool, calmness of the tiled kitchen floor and I settle there. In some war with myself and my mind. I look at her from time to time. These hazel eyes that control me, they roll back slightly. In some psychedelic lull from here to there.

I’d snuck in a shot or 7 by noon and we were both pretending we hadn’t noticed.

And I’m calm cool and collected, as long we don’t leave this tiled kitchen floor.

I’m sky captained out. With no ground control in sight. But, she’s smiling and she’s looking at me like I’m her savior. (I don’t even know how to save myself, y’all)

Two years ago, we dickered, about how to decorate the tree. I was happy with the built-in white LEDs. The kid wanted some colored bulbs thrown in the mix. I strung lights around and around the artificial tree, winding the lights in and out and up and down to bring a rainbow of color to our otherwise plain tree.

The decorations were there, on the floor, near the tree. The discussion ended with the lights. I thought the tree looked lovely. The understatement and simplicity of the colored strings with the branches tipped with the built-in white lights. It lit the living room with holiday grace and joy. You complained about how decorating the tree could be painful for you. Your joints ached through activity. Still, over the next few days, you added ornament after ornament.

There are the old glass ones we inherited from our parents. There are the gift ornaments we received on our first Christmas as a married couple. There are the ones our daughter had gifted us over the years. Slowly, methodically, you completed the tree. The same one you swore you didn't want to decorate.

How much more would I have done, had I known, or even imagined, it would be the last tree we would decorate together? I cannot see a tree at this time of year, without rethinking that thought. Every blinking light is a reminder of my regrets.

One year ago, we had a plan. It was a hard few months, at least as far as your health was concerned. No doctor would listen. Your nephrologist took urine samples a week ago and should have had a clue. Your primary care physician was lost in his own grief at the passing of his mother and provided to assistance. I had even found a new PCP so that maybe someone would address the fact you couldn't eat, or move. I mean, I had to help you roll over in bed. I had to help you up to the bathroom. Every two hours I woke up to see if you needed to move or drink or pee or any other thing that you could need.

We had a plan. I was going to drive you to the ER of the teaching hospital. The best the area had. I had to drive you since the ambulance changed policy and would only take you to the closest hospital, no longer to the hospital of your choice. We tried that about 10 days prior and that ER discharged you within hours of our attempt.

You slept upstairs in our bed with me. It was the first time that happened in awhile. You had been staying on the couch so that we wouldn't disturb each other on the overnight. Due to our plan, you stayed upstairs with me. It was nice to have you next to me again. I know we didn't sleep worth a damn, but I had you next to me again.

How much more would I have savored it, had I known, or even imagined it would be the last time you would share our bed with me. I don't know what would have changed. Compared to you, I'm a giant. I was afraid of crushing you by accident. A simple rolling over could have been your end, but fuck, I would have held you as tightly and closely and as long as possible to savor every last second of that final night.

How could I know? We started around 1 a.m. You were ready to get to the ER. It took us nearly twelve hours just to get to the car. You were so fragile. A few steps, rest, repeat until we did the Herculean task of taking the long march of twelve feet, from the front door to the passenger seat. Where with eternal optimism, we set off for the hospital, hoping to find a solution.

This year, there is no tree, no lights, no decorations, or anything festive to be found around the house. Only a call to the last night you were here. I miss you. Every Christmas memory ends here in your absence. From my first memory of Santa to our last decorated tree to spending Christmas in the hospital by your side. Always hoping you would come home, but you didn't.

I first heard

of the sister wound

in an article on one of those dime-a-dozen new age websites,

the kind that regurgitate what I already know, on some deeper,

innate level but still need validation of

A piece likely written by a woman originally named

Sarah, who now goes by Sage, a person that like me, and maybe you,

is more satisfied by a perceived reclamation

of the present than the weariness of the past but Sarah--sorry, Sage--

(you know how hard it is to unlearn bitter truths)

writes with a heavy pen onto napkins, onto notebooks, onto carefully

manicured webpages her sing-songy tales of the burdened heart

Of a little girl lost in the churning cyclone

of maiden, mother, and crone, reaching, stretching, yearning for

a pristine, gentle hand to pull her from the noise to redirect

the eddies of woe, to show her the direction of the currents

and how to swim against the tides and lastly, to bestow her crown

upon the next goddess of the sea, holy in her power, soothing in her caress,

vast in her divinity

And Sage,

like me and maybe you, knows the legend of the goddess of the sea

and wears her mask, dances her dance, and demands offerings

as if she were the truest vision of Woman but in her own secret,

shameful knowledge, she knows Sage and Sarah are forever linked

So Sarah, drowning Sarah,

fights her way to the surface, bleeding out onto the pages of

twinflameastrology1111aquariusrisingmercedesingatorade.com

writing pro-tips in her blood, hard earned wisdom whipped

into the whirlpools of maiden, mother, and crone,

of a rising goddess seeking direction, support, wisdom, and strength,

but met with the opposite and more--a wilted rose upon a drying stem

But yet, in all her pain, despite the winters growing colder,

even in the naivete of spring and the confusion of summer,

regardless of the fading power of autumn, the bud lifts and opens,

and though the thorns prick, often without apology,

Sage smiles, donning the crown of the goddess of the sea

Sarah-Sage caresses her freshly-struck face with her own pristine, soft hand,

reaching through the future-past to slow the Wheels of Fortune

spinning furiously into the grave, to soothe mothers, sisters,

aunties and friends who chose to spill the acrid blood

of festering wounds onto each other instead of the pages of

twinflameastrology1111aquariusrisingmercutioineightofspades.com

Sarah, the Sage, friend to my hyperfocused machinations

reaches for me through this frigid night, where I sit alone

on a porch in the dark, fuming, exhausted, desperate

trying to contain my acrid blood before it dissolves the remnants

of the stilts holding my home above the sea

but brazenly,

I peer into the tempestuousness of brain and brine

to find a tiny hand barely breaking the tension of the surface

fingertips searching for a graceful, loving touch

Sarah, my sage, figment of my darkened heart, tends to my wound

then coyly, childishly, pushes me back into the violent waters

I catch her voice along the wind, insisting that this time,

I will learn to swim

I tried to be Stoic

But my shoulders caved. I drew into myself and averted my eyes.

It was 6 P.M and I was on Morrison Time. Consecutive sunsets bled into a blur of consecutive suns rising.

I heard you breaths as you slipped off. I tried to be quiet. I tried to be calm. You were drifting to dreams and ready to crash and i was hyped up on white line dreams and overtaken with white line fever.

I wanted to go. I wanted to run. But...your breaths drew me in. Soft and steady. Something slipping in between the muddled noise of this hotel and the steady, monotonous tones of a local anchor somewhere.

I looked at your face, changed now and wiser. Your Wilder days were behind you and i was a split second from a monster flip. The Hell Dust had its hold. I needed to go, to ride this high alone. But your breath... soft and shallow stunned me to stillness. You whispered my name as you slept. I moved closer and loaded a bowl. Just a little green to take off the edge. I wanted to hold you, to feel your skin... soft and warm against me.

I crushed a bar, to bring me down and you moved at the sound. A quite request. Like an invitation to your bed. I tried to come to you, frozen their in fear of myself. You said my name again, your golden eyes brought to life by my high.

It was 7. P.M when my fingers found your skin. Your breath quicken at my touch. I knew i should go. Theres a thin line between fuckin and making love, i thought. And i was crossing it now. My lips tracing your thigh, you pushed closer...an eager gesture of lust and need. There was peace and heaven in your sighs, in your cunt, in your need. It was fast and fleeting and then your head was on my chest. Your hair tangled and wild against my tits. It felt like home. But i knew when your eyes closed i would go.

It was 9 P.M when kissed you softly and stroked your hair. I quick movement and my things were packed. I took one last look as I opened the door. I wanted to stay but the cycle was set deep inside me. I was a runner. The fear or you and me.

It was 9:15 when the elevator door open. The tears were coming now. The door closed and I was alone.

I tried to be Stoic

But my shoulders caved.

Sounds fill the air

with circles of swirling sonic splendor,

spinning with barrages of notes

that send the heart into a frenzy,

numbing the mind with pleasure,

rhythm pulses passion

in squares and rectangles

of galloping thumping thuds,

parallel to the beats of the heart

sending the body into movement,

music engulfs the body

in the sideways eight of infinity,

vibrating and blanketing,

pounding and elevating

to the stars and ellipses

of orbit.

I can’t love.

My mind is a mess

of twisted thoughts

I’ve shaped over the years

to help me do

what I thought I was supposed to do,

to help me say

what I thought I was supposed to say.

Someone said hi,

I said hi back.

Someone said I love you,

I said I love you back

because I thought

that’s what I was supposed to do.

I always waited

for the woman to climax

because I thought that was

what I was supposed to do.

The polite thing to do.

But my heart

is this sunken hidden thing

I don’t think I have access to

underneath all these thoughts

twisted like a mess of spaghetti,

twisted by my need to fit in,

by my need to attempt

to be human.

A young man sat in the garden, and he overheard somebody to somebody talking:

I'm very upset with all this... This what? ...This going behind my back... Behind my back?! ... Yes, we were supposed to be working hand in hand in creation... Hand-in-glove... Whatever, it was agreed No Good, Without Evil... Of course, of course... For Balance... Yes, well, what to do? ...Well, I gave him a jab... You didn't!? ...I did, and here's the ribald... A rib, ahh what to do with it? ...Do? create a counterpart. It's an opening... And that's where you slip in? ...Exactly... Oh. Well, an honest deal is an honest deal...

The young man peeked between the leaves of the trees. He saw the back of the white bearded Grand padre and his shadow both gesticulating wildly. He saw no one else, look about as he may, and he retreated. The padre soon peered in on the lad, poking a finger to the left of his chest where the breastplate would be, right at his muddy heart.

...A promise is a promise... A promise made, is a promise kept...

And he gave the young man a young woman. To this day, they believe that God was talking to the Devil. But in fact, for eternity, it was God wrestling with himself.

11.24.2023

FFF#7 Secret Meeting(s) challenge @ChrisSadhill