Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Sober Up

The moment when you realize through your grief that losing a loved one is not about you is quite sobering...even if you're stone cold drunk when it hits you.

Sober. Quite suddenly.

No, it's not about you begging the spirits of the departed to return in a ghostly form in front of you (at 3am as you get up to pee) and beg them to bestow their forgiveness upon you for all the crappy things you did or said to them while they were alive. 

It's not about you damning them to hell for never owning up to some lie they went to their grave letting you believe, either...watching you twist in the wind in your guilt and never letting you off the hook.

It's not about you not knowing how to maintain or honor your loved one's wishes when he refused to deal with getting his affairs in order before his last days.

It's not about what it feels like for you when the workers come in to tear down lovingly built walls, tear up carpets, rip out intricately installed wiring, pull out moldings, throw away classic light fixtures and wash over every trace of your beloved's personality in a harsh, cold white, paint. 

And it's not going to be about you the first time you allow some other currently-breathing carcass into his newly white-washed home, to show the place to a potential new resident and tell him or her stoically that he transitioned there. Yes, there. Right in that room. And by the way, you're inheriting an evil black cat if you move in. Boogeda boogeda boogeda!

Rather...it always has been and should be about him and his glorious new existence. He who is too busy being free and whole in mind, spirit and body to have time to come back to deal with you in a less-than-fabulous specter-esque form just to give you permission to quit feeling sorry for yourself. He does not care of the things of this world any longer and would frankly have little patience for the fact that you do. 

He just might, however, come back long enough to terrify you into soiling yourself a little if an Archangel should get word to him about what's been going down with Suzie Sadsack back on Earth. No doubt he'd get a giggle out of that, but soon enough he'd be frantic that curtain is in five and you're making him late. 

Sober up. Not about you. His death...about HIM. Not you. HIM. And he's alive and full of light and racing around on fully developed legs and gorging his eyes with every delicious color and shape ever Created, now available to him with 20/20 vision. The joy you should feel by simply imagining what he is seeing, feeling and experiencing for the first time in 47 years should be enough for you to let your insignificant guilt go. Let. it. go. He doesn't care about your guilt, as he shouldn't. He does NOT care. There is now way too much living and celebrating and preparing for his next journey to do, too many more hearts that need to collide with his, too many stages to light, too many canvases to paint, too many beings' lives to touch in the next realm, because it's HIS death...and NOT YOURS. Absolutely. not. yours.

Let him have his death...because guaranteed, he wants you to have your life. Sober up.


For M.M.H. ♥

Monday, November 07, 2011

Una Poesia

For M.M.H. ♥

What am I doing here
Nothing to show for all my sorrow
What proves I ever really existed
No one to give me just one bone-crushing hug
The kind you can collapse in
I so need one and yet there's no one
And somehow I mourn so deeply one
Who couldn't be that for me
The one true blue in all these years
The only one with the kindest words
The most selfless heart
The desire to please
Who showed his love with color and light
and wood and nails and paint
Though not bone-crushing hugs

And I didn't do enough
I never did enough
I never let myself consider doing
much of anything
He needs a project
Always a project
So self-sufficient
Never asked for help
And though I knew he needed some
I didn't offer
I just didn't
And now it's too late
And I knew it would be while I was in it
I saw this moment of guilt and grief
coming down the road
And still -- I did nothing
Until the point where I was forced
Not because I wanted to but because I had to
And everyone says "angel"
But I say "coward" and "creep"
and "user" and "narcissist"
Even though he'd have done it for me
No second thoughts
Bottles of piss cleaning my nails
feedings through straws
He'd lift me off the milkshake-cat-puke-covered floor
with his freakishly strong, painfully skinny arms
Without a single second thought
He'd lift me.

But I? Me? -- shook and fretted the whole time
Every touch another tear
Every caress across his brow guilt burning my skin
Every single minute still breathing is a new flame of terror
There are no flowers beneath my window this year
What color - you didn't tell me what color you want
Has he stopped yet
The breathing I mean.


He's gone now
Never coming home never never never
Name dying out -- gone for good
Evaporating with the heat of the cooling spotlight
And I'm all he had I'm what he got stuck with
And I wasn't enough
It wasn't fair
Seven years and I wasn't enough
"you were his angel"
bullshit shut up

Come home I want you to come home
Time to come home
Please come home
Release this
I can't feel this sick to my stomach anymore.

Somehow it's still about me.