Pain

Sorry I've been gone for a few days.  I wrote this, in free verse, to explain my absence. 

Pain

Blinding headache

Condensation behind my eye

Each drop hurts more than the last

Almost more than I can endure

Nauseating swell

Not big enough for wretched relief

Not small enough to subside

Just enough to be sure it’ll reoccur

Not the burning. The searing throb

No, please no more.

My back, hips. . .knees? Now my neck?

You bastard! For what must I atone?!

What must I do for you to quit? 

I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do.

Leave me alone, please. . .

Leave my whole family alone.

I try not to wake you.

Not to irritate or anger you.

I walk on eggshells, crawl on glass and lie on nails

What else must I do in your name?

You have assimilated me.

Who would I be without you?

You’re a part of my identity now.

Hi, my name is Missy, and I am in pain.

All these years, like an abused wife

Afraid to do anything that may wake you

Structuring my life around your moods

In fear you may rear your angry head and yell.

I hate the pills, the fucking pills

And treatments that work only to later fail

Go ahead bring on what’s next you punk

Have no fear that I will fight you in hell!

Sweetheart, I know the baby needs changed.

No, I didn’t pull anything out for dinner.

Yes, the laundry and dishes are piled very high

I’m sorry

I know you’re not mad.

I know you understand,

But, I don’t.

I’m sorry

You didn’t sign up for this. 

Thank you for your patience, and love.

You don’t deserve this, and just remember

I’m sorry

What do you see in the Mirror?

This is a challange to any who feel up to it,  a free verse explanation. . .

"What do you see in the Mirror?"

Tag me and let me know what you've come up with!

Grey

Is appearance more important than the reality within?

I can’t remember if I’m seeing awareness or just an illusion.

Pull your shoulders back, stiffen and straighten!

So much deception is inside that reflection.

I talk to her in tones quite eerily hushed.

My hair is starting to go grey, but it looks very nice when it is brushed.

Did my appearance change the moment you knew me?

Not quite attractive, but not hideous and ugly.

When I look like someone you might not have  noticed previously.

Terrified at being undisguised, I am comforted in the obscurity.

My cheeks are no longer a  cherubic rosy but are woman-like flushed.

My hair is starting to go grey, but it looks very nice when it is brushed.

I accept I don’t look the sort of woman of which I consist.                                        

I can not change for anyone in my midst.

I fear my sanity is maturing with a delightfully eccentric twist.

With madness, I most certainly have been sweetly kissed.                                                                          

My image hides the cerebral wounds of when my mind was anguished.

My hair is starting to go grey, but it looks very nice when it is brushed.

I have an unusual appearance for a woman so unsure.

Ah. . but my face is my own and not for your pleasure.

Do not start to look, you will find no concealed treasure.

Intentions shift with the certainty of time’s passing and departure.

My voice has never existed to be shushed.

My hair is starting to go grey, but it looks very nice when it is brushed.

I want to hide my eyes for fear they are a breach to what I’m about.

Perpetually knowing that someday I will be found out.

The schematics  of my mind painfully revealed throughout

Except for the intrusive mirror, I am a stranger no doubt.

My face has changed much and with small lines it has been touched.

My hair is starting to go grey, but it looks very nice when it is brushed.

I have forgotten how to apply most makeup, I don’t care to remember how.

And I don’t want to be excruciatingly conspicuous now.

Not young, not old and over the last years,  too fleshy somehow.

Even I must look at this truthful double with a raised eyebrow.

My beauty and essence are locked away, safe and within my soul they are clutched.

My hair is starting to go grey, but it looks very nice when it is brushed.

Currently Listening Raising Sand see related

Simple Pleasures

Kween_of_the_Queens put out a fun challenege.  To simply state your favorite simple pleasures.

Simple Pleasures

• When someone says, “what do you think?”
• If someone smiles when I walk into the room.
• A child trying to tell you something when they are excited and jubilant or when you tech them something and the “get it.”
• When my husband reads to me in bed.  Especially when I’m not feeling well.
• My children all home and at my dinner table.
• The Sunday morning Quaker Friends Meeting
• Watching my grown sons playing with their 2 year-old sister.
• Meditating
• Remembering or telling stories my grandparents (who have both passed away) told me.
• Finishing a really good book that you wished wouldn’t end.
• Getting a good review of something I wrote from someone I respect.
• My husband’s enthusiastic support of MY dreams.
• Watching children in sports, plays, and concerts or exhibiting their work.  Then, seeing their own pride for what they have accomplished.
• Making new friends.
• Driving through my town. (a tiny foothill community just outside Sequoia National Park. A river runs through it.)
• A big deep bathtub, hooked up to a gigantic water heater.
• A big huge soft bed with a ton of pillows and a sea of handmade quilts on fresh cotton sheets.
• The feeling you get when you’ve helped, but not enabled someone.
• Sewing, cooking, gardening, painting, crafting.
• Having time to drift all over Xanga.
• The smell of the Giant Forest or the Pacific Ocean.
• Jumping into the river when it’s over 100 outside.
• Having my home completely clean and the family’s laundry done.
• Watching a well made documentary.
• Waking up from a surgery and seeing my mother standing over me.
• Picking, preparing, serving and eating veggies and fruits I’ve grown myself.
• Nursing my babies.
• Reading The Darwin Awards
• Getting my magazines or a package in the mail.
• Knowing that my husband will never make a choice without putting me and our family first. 
• Looking at my daughter and seeing my husband's happy eyes.

 A simply complex pleasurable occurrence

      I have some physical problems right now that I am hoping will be alleviated after surgery next month.  There are times, especially in the wee hours of the morning, when the pain is very bad.  My husband, regardless of how early he has to get up for work, will calm me.  He does this by rubbing whatever is hurting and talking to me, even if I tell him to roll over and go back to sleep.               

     In some backward way, even when I'm experiencing physical pain, I find pleasure in his care and kindness.  I find pleasure in the intimacy of these difficult moments.  I find a deep pleasure in his love. 

 

I Remember

• .25 Candy Bars
• Puff 'n Stuff,  Electra Woman & Dyna Girl, and Sigmond the Sea Monster
• .99 gas
• leg warmers
• the "every six months" perm
• going to my moms work one weekend because she was excited to show me the new computer. . .that filled the whole room!
• MTV when MTV actually played music,
• Show box cell phones
• Betamax
• returnable bottles
• Zip-Around Rag City Blues
• Dittos
• Rainbow shirts -  The rainbow went across the arms and chest.
• Combs (or roach clips) with feathers and beads that we wore in our hair. 

EDIT  

Remember what we had before the new self tanners??  It was called QT or (short for quick tan)  QT2.  It turned you ORANGE.  Not a shade of qorange, but PUMPKIN ORANGE!!!  it went well with what Sun In did to my brown hair!  I Looked like an oompa loompa!

Night in Amore

At first, he was evil and unknown, all I ever feared as a child. . . . so troubled

He is comfort now and with fear I’m no longer concerned

My sincere responses are tenderly learned.

Diminished, I anticipate calming, fueled by this silent resurrection

A re-born disciple, each time he accepts my aching invitation

Absorbed in the security that he will infiltrate my inner sanctum.

Sacred, passionate, faithful, a mundane anomaly

Fiercely I protect my aloneness, yet his arrival I welcome and embrace

And as always with the dawn I grieve his inevitable exodus made in haste.

Sheathed by him, the wild thoughts dance and my mind becomes prolific and fertile

My offering, a battle-raw soul and the combat wounds achieved

Willingly I suspend sleep for a union to bring something conceived.

I wait for his validation and to be seduced and inspired and soothed and humble

The only consistent thing this life has ever noted

He is wholly and unconditionally devoted.

A sultry unification of indefinable shadows

An aura of sounds trumpet the enchanting ritual has begun

Swathed in the otherworld and only concluding with the penetration of the sun.

I have an intimate knowing of his antediluvian rites

I am his voyeur,  I painfully, lovingly study his stealth and activity  

He is ambiguous to most, but not to me.

I watch him and know him

I study his silent changes and discover his intimate details and essence

Is that why he gives me unconditional acceptance?

I curl tighter into his kindness, his serenity, his calm

Blessed friend, confidante and sentinel of light

I need no words to impart my plight.

He just knows

Faithful hours of darkness,. . .my shelter from the wickedness of  vulnerability

His exaltation is grounded on one sweet honor; his unshakeable, angelic dependability.