Releasing the self.

I have to share the poems that I briefly mentioned last week.

Watching Love

I.
they stand without space

so close the heat melds
their chests into one

my mind wields the memory
as if i am standing in her body
my chest in pain as it remembers

once i was her

II.
they kiss the force molding
a new body
a figure that impedes the work of angelo

i remember molding
the length of her body
into mine

once i was him

III.
she lays in the hospital bed
squeezing my hand
crying as the nurse fishes
for the vein weeding through
to keep the next heart beat

her heart is mine
and it doesn't want to stay

IV.
his body bends in
curves without muscles
any touch is torture
but his eyes say "touch me"

his body is mine
and it doesn't want to love

V.
that stare
that lingering look
that finger stroking longingly up the arm
those locking legs
aching to feel more

once we were free

i cannot touch that which i love

yesterday only seemed one foot behind
with tomorrow infinitely away.
nowadays the footage has become miles,
and infinity one inch from the ledge.

tell me, how can a body love
when it doesn't respond;
tell me, how can a heart express
what it cannot touch?

yesterday only seemed one foot behind
with tomorrow infinitely away.
nowadays the footage has become miles,
and infinitely one inch from the ledge.

he looks at me with puppy eyes:
his face puffed by pain,
his body curling in,
his sense of touch a torture chamber.

yesterday only seemed one foot behind
with tomorrow infinitely away.
nowadays the footage has become miles,
and infinity one inch from the ledge.

i see my little girl wrestling
with her love, and feel
the want buried inside crawl up me,
i laugh to keep from reaching out--

yesterday only seemed one foot behind
with tomorrow infinitely away.
nowadays the footage has become miles,
and infinity one inch from the ledge.

she is me; he is him: at night
i dream he is there and so am i
in our perfect bodies
made for fun and love.

yesterday only seemed one foot behind
with tomorrow infinitely away.
nowadays the footage has become miles,
and infinity one inch from the ledge.

i must keep smiling, even through these tears

i must keep smiling, even through these tears
gathered in my eyes. they cannot fall,
not tonight, not yesterday or tomorrow.
sadness is all I have
to hold as he falls
away from me.

buried deep is the boy who pinned me down,
licked my face;
buried deep is the boy who wrapped my arms
about my chest, held me tight
to bite my neck.

i must keep smiling, even with the pain
gathered in my chest. it cannot subside,
not tonight, not yesterday or tomorrow.
sadness is all I have
to hold as he falls
away from me.


And then, when the first serious winter nastiness came, this poem came about. No, this poem isn't about the absence of physical closeness, but about the beauty I saw in what the ice storm left, a beauty that can destroy--uproot trees, break limbs that destroy items below, such as house and car, and cause accidents on foot or on tire--as well as a beauty that can create fun--ice skating, snow boarding, building ice forts or other artsy stuff, and so forth. Something that I haven't been able to do without force, see the beauty and describe it, even with the three grandchildren that were born this year--although I had tears of happiness when I saw my second grandson born (I actually was there for the birth!). This poem wrote itself for the most part, and I worked with what the pen gave me, attempting to get a rhythm and sound to match what I saw. I believe the poems captures the ice that stayed around for two whole days on everything.

Bitter Sweet

A clear sheet falls with the night
lighting the midnight with shivers
of glistening glass

Morning awakens the encased sleeping life
with chimes and brass drums
singing the wind's song

Eyes watch the sun rays dance
into and off the layers of ice
not yet fallen to earth

This blog isn't about my poetry, but the destruction of keeping myself closed off to deal with my husband's disability kept me from doing what I enjoyed most--writing. Writing is my therapy, and I was too afraid to face the truth, the hurt that I knew would be found in the truth, the truth that my husband's body is leaving before his mind is ready to go, before his dreams can be met, not only leaving him, but leaving me . . . yes me! It's like the man who walks out the door and takes everything with him, everything, even your livelihood. This is when you realize how much he is a part of you, how much of his every being is blended into you! In a way, the nature poem expresses the meshing of all life whether we realize it or not.

My husband is a great part of my life, more than I ever wanted to admit. I do have a life outside of "him," but that is only part of me. Now I understand why a husband or wife dies shortly after the other departs; and I understand how divorces happen when one becomes disabled--but, on the other hand, some marriages become much stronger. Society is less bombarded with the marriage that succeeds, less bombarded with the marriage that strengthens with adversity.

I'll admit, this is rough. I want so much from him: I want him to do everything possible to make himself mobile, to make his body work, and forget the fear and pain that comes with doing so. He has gone through physical therapy some time ago, and the physical therapy didn't help much. Because of this, he refuses to attempt a massage therapy for the muscles; plus, the pain he has from the fibromynolgia also keeps him from attempting it. What do I now? I do know that some therapy will be painful, but in the long run the body will be all the better for it: all that needs to be done is figuring out what is best and sticking to it. I realize he doesn't want to experiment because of the pain or making something else worse, such as woresening the disc in his back.

I guess this is a good time to explain a little about his disability. He has several things going on: fibromynolgia, some form of arthritis that none of the doctors can identifying completely, bulging disc, degenerate spine (I think that is what it is called), a rotating tailbone--this one I do understand! after I took a couple of tumbles and had to have physical therapy (which I must deep up with on my own to keep my hip and lower back from being in great pain), spurs that are appearing in the knees and ankles, old injuries that can no longer sustain walking, and . . . , I now there is something else. At one point, the doctors thought of MS, but have not furthered that thought, as if they don't want to waste time. He hasn't insisted on further testing, but I think about it often. Even if "I" pushed for the testing, would the insurance cover it?

That brings up another issue that infuriates me--the insurance being in control of what a doctor deems best, or a doctor believes may find the initial cause. One doctor wanted my husband to go down to IU for some unusual battery of test--experimental test--to see if anything further could be determined. Insurance denied. Experimental seems to be a "bad" word. But what about the quality of life becoming better?

Yeap, I jumped from a personal need I have for my husband to dealing with medical situations and insurances. Believe me, they all tie in together! It sounds a little silly to me, but outside forces appear to have more control over what is going to happen and what is happening to my husband and I, than what we have right now.

Well, her I am to blog. I've decided to blog about my community project for my class project--one of three last classes before finishing my MA. My community project is attempting to begin a group in Fort Wayne, Indiana for women who have disabled husbands--physically disabled--to come together and talk, cry, complain, express all the feelings that come with losing the physical contact that so many women are use to having. I'm not speaking about sexual intimacy alone. There is the hugging, the playfulness, the ability to chase each other like some children.

What i miss most is the playfulness, the wrestling, the grabbing and biting, the sneaking up behind him and squeezing. when his physical disability started to show itself, I told myself, "I can deal with this. I didn't; not really. I ignored it, I pretended that the doctors would figure out what was wrong and correct it. When the doctors couldn't tell us exactly what was wrong and began to give an assorted listing of all the physical symptoms as individual problems, I decided to keep busy, to not think about touching, to keep physical contact at a minimum. Avoidance. I became hard, keeping my feelings out of reach, telling myself I didn't have time to cry, telling myself I couldn't be weak, telling myself that I had to have control to help him get through, control to keep the family together. Finally, after nearly two years of not allowing myself to cry, I cried sometime during the first week of November (2209) after watching my daughter with her new boyfriend--wrestling, laughing, chasing each other, goofing around. I've always watched my daughters, both of them much like me in different ways, but my youngest is the more outgoing with her actions, not so resign in showing exactly how she feels. I saw me in her. and listening to the two talk as they watched movies in the living room, and watched them goof around, I saw my husband in my daughter's boyfriend. Within the first week of them dating, I wrote three poems.

My creativity had been stifled; I writing about the very distant past and not the present, the words feeling too old for whom I was. In a poetry class, a class I attempt to take at least every other year, I couldn't release myself as I should, although I thought I had. Now I see that I was holding on to something, a secret that I didn't even know I had. After releasing this secret, not only did the words begin to come forth, so did all those issues I had been burying--more than my husband's disability, all those worries I forced to set aside and not combat, making ailments appear that I had never had. (I do remember the last cry I had before November 2009, and it has been longer than two year!: may 2004, the day before April 1st and my gallbladder surgery.) No wonder I broke so hard during Christmas break.

Those poems began to make me think; I kept intently watching the actions between my daughter and her boyfriend. I must say that I became "smitten" with the vitality he had--that he has!, the vitality my husband could no longer display (and talked about). My daughter is just as physically needy as me; I like to be touched, a lot, and I get depressed when the physical contact is limited. I'm a hugger, I'm a poker, I'm a biter, I'm a sucker, I'm a kick you butt, I'm a pinch your scrumptious ass person. So is she! I started to see my life in her, not through her; I started to want her life. This is where the Christmas break breakdown began, the first week of November, the day after ISSMA State Finals (Indiana State ?? Music Association--I always forget what the second 's' stands for), the High School Marching Band finals in Indy.

In a way, I should thank both of them; still, I need somewhere to go, I need to talk to another that deals with a disabled husband that can no longer give the physical contact she is use to, and to help me prepare for the worse that is yet to come--even though the doctors can't actually tell us, I would love to know what all the individual diagnoses add up to--some new disease, syndrome, whatever! There is one symptom that none of the doctors can explain, and at first the initials MS were whispered, but they have done little to rule it our or to rule that it is. Is it because there is nothing more that can be done then what is already being done; or is it because Medicaid won't allow for the test that would determine, or . . . well . . . I just don't know. a part of me doesn't want to know the whole, and the other part of me would think it would all be simpler if we knew.

I'm Back

Hello.

Back to blogging again!

Dawn