Adrift

Time is most precious
You fill yours; me left wanting.
So I fill mine too.

~ Mk Michaels, 2014

Simple

The Iron Lady

Keeping up appearances
for the benefit of others
is exhausting,
particularly when
your own needs
are put on the back burner,
leaving you
a sink full of pots
with scorched bottoms.

~ Mk Michaels,  2014

Little Girl, Lost

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Running freely,

arms stretched wide.

Laughing loudly,

without inhibition

High on life,
trusting completely

in the perfection of love. 

WHAM! 

Without warning, the landscape is unfamiliar.

A recurring dream since childhood of

being in my neighborhood,

but recognizing nothing.

Primal fear rising

“What if I never find my way home again?”

 

~ Mk Michaels, 2014

 

 

 

 

This Life of Mine

This life of mine

isn’t for lightweights,

although I’d hardly consider myself a heavyweight.

 

Shouldering the heaviness of

my children,

our home,

my grief,

their grief

all in parallel with PTA meetings,

keeping the refrigerator stocked,

toilet paper supplied,

mountains of laundry cleaned,

 worries over potholes,

and a neighbor who wants to start a home-daycare,

is too much…

some days.

 

Forget finding time for what feeds me;

my garden,

creating beauty,

my relationship,

growing food,

sitting still to watch our chickens free range

in the back field,

being quiet.

Sometimes, I find time to write,

like today.

 

There are times I want to put it all down

and find comfort in the arms of an angels

who would feed me buttered toast and tea,

stroking my hair while I wept,

and hand me tissues,

the good kind with the lotion in them.

Angels, you see, are in short supply

and most, no matter how kind hearted they are,

fight their own battles and are tired too.

But I don’t judge and usually I don’t complain because

without exception

everything I have ever judged has come full circle

to bite me in the ass.

So I try very hard not to judge

lest I have another pound of flesh

bitten off.

 

When my ‘woe is me, I don’t have an angel today’ pity party

becomes too disgusting for even me to bear,

I remember a family I met in Vietnam.

They lived in a place of great beauty

but were so poor,

they had little they could call their own.

They sold fruit to tourists who would likely

let the fruit go shamefully to waste

for fear of contracting a stomach bug.

This mother, father, son, and baby daughter had so little

but were happy, their smiles sincere,

their time spent outside in their

rustic floating village.

 

When it feels I am near a breaking point

gratitude keeps me levelheaded.

I could stand in any single room of my home and have more

at my fingertips than that family

would have in a year … or a lifetime.

Clean running water,

food, clothing, and schools for my children,

a computer, paper, pencils, and all the books I could want

which afford me the supreme luxury

of endless knowledge and words.

I cannot lose sight of these things

even when my angels are busy battling their demons

and go missing.

 

~ Mk Michaels, 2014

When Life Goes Down

When life goes down

It. Goes. Down.

It doesn’t wait for the social engagements you’ve got going to pass.

It may not allow you to breathe in the communal air you’ve come to rely upon.

It definitely won’t allow you to keep up with all the things you’ve so reliably kept up with for years.

It. Goes. Down.

 

In the initial aftermath,

you are a celebrity of sorts,

the latest fashionable tragedy

around whom so many flock.

The paparazzi stalks you,

if only to say they were there

and, yes, to truly love and support you.

In the beginning, that is.

 

The outpouring is sincere,

true, and heartfelt.

People want to help and knowing nothing can

fill the gaping void left by death,

they show up in pairs and trios to

make coffee, bring casseroles,

attend the funeral, and

keep you in their thoughts and prayers.

 

When life goes down,

it is human nature to

try to get back to normal

not realizing, or forgetting,

that with each addition or subtraction of a person

in your life, there is no going back.

That normal is gone.

Finding the new normal is the trick

and it takes some time to figure this out.

Hell, it takes some time to even remember to breathe,

let alone breathe naturally.

In and out and in again.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

 

You try to keep up.

You try to stay in touch.

You try by scraping together a costume

and showing up at a Village party

a mere week and a day after

you’ve lost your lifelong friend

and you are so numb you’re probably

not safe enough to drive to the party

let alone get home after a glass of wine.

But you try.

 

When you’ve lost your lifelong friend

and your children have lost one of their parents,

you just can’t.

Keep up.

Stay in touch.

at least not like you used to.

So instead of a costume of a pirate in a corset,

your costume is the smile

you duct tape on your face each morning

to keep the children from being too afraid.

The priorities have shifted dramatically

and some days, just getting out of bed

and putting on that brave face is a victory.

 

As time passes,

when the obituary has been forgotten,

and life has, in theory,

gone back to normal,

the Village, the whirling and swirling of the until-death-do-us-part Village

that you knew, just knew, you could count on forever

can get mighty quiet.

You see, their priorities have shifted dramatically, too,

and the parties have gone on.

In spite of your super human efforts

to show up when you can,

you lose touch

and another form of grieving begins.

 

Like an absence from church is noted as a betrayal of sorts

she fell away,

she lost the faith,

she wasn’t as committed as we thought

 so, too, is an absence from a party.

 

Jesus turned water into wine

and I imagine he could have turned my tears

into an ocean of wine,

had I made an appearance,

but I could barely get dressed,

barely keep the laundry done,

barely keep get the groceries from the car to the kitchen,

barely keep my job going and growing

…because it is all on me now.

It was beyond my ability to ask

for help even from the warmest of friends

let alone the cold shoulders I started noticing

particularly since my life had become

anything but a good time wine-down

for a while.

 

Here’s the thing, though,

As hurt as I may be, I can’t judge

for I am certain I have done the same in

the course of my fifty years on this earth.

I am convinced I have passed over someone who needed me to reach out

just one more time.

I know I have forgotten someone I once held near and dear

because my life was busy, I was distracted,

and I forgot to call, text, respond.

I believe deep down, I felt at least a little betrayed

because they weren’t there for me in the way they once were

simply because life went down for them.

I felt hurt or abandoned or devalued

because they couldn’t even remember to breathe

in and out and in again

let alone do their part to sustain our connection

because life went down for them.

In this, I am ashamed.

Because it is during precisely those times

they needed me most.

 

Next time, though, I’ll know

and will do better.

In this, I am thankful

Thank you, Village, for the roots and blessons I was given.

You are loved.

 

~ Mk Michaels, 2014

A letter to my 16-year old self

My Dearest Mk,

 

You don’t know me yet, but eventually, we will come to be very close friends.  I am your future and you are my past.  We are connected and although we have often thought of one another, we have not yet met.  Time will bring us together.

 

I am here to tell you of your future.  Being sixteen, you will probably take this with a grain of salt and discount my predictions and advice, but bear with me and, if it is within you, listen well and take my words to heart.

 

Your life will be hard.  You will experience pain, hardship and challenges that seem unsurpassable.

 

Your life will be good.  You will make close friends, you will meet many kind people along the way and you will learn and grow through the years.

 

Your life will be colored with words.  You will hear harsh words no young woman should ever have to bear and will take years to prove them false.  You will hear soft words which sound foreign at first, but will become familiar in time.  You will come to own your own words, your talent, your passion, and your truth.  You will learn to speak kindly but without apology for your authenticity.  You will find your core and, in this, stop censoring yourself for the benefit of others.  Like the Velveteen Rabbit, you will become real.

 

Your life will be agonizing.  You will experience depths of despair that leave you unwilling to continue living,  heartache that leaves you gasping for breath and certain that you should die of grief, and face choices that  no woman should ever have to make. 

 

Your life will be glorious.  You will experience the ecstasy of beauty, the glory of love and the elation of carrying children in your womb, in your arms and in your heart.

 

Your life will be full of learning.  You will learn that you are strong enough to brave the cold of love’s winter.  You will come to want and need deeply enough that you will courageously spread your arms wide and hold another close enough that she could hurt you.  You will come to understand the difference between sacrificing for love and sacrificing yourself, choosing wisely between the two.  You will learn that you can withstand the effects left in the wake of your betrayal by another and stand strong.  You will learn you can stand alone – quietly and with grace, continuing to live and learn.  You will have lessons to learn, burdens to shed, and promises to keep and break.

 

You will survive, you will make choices, and you will come into your own body, your truth, your soul.  You will prevail.  You will writhe in agony, laugh out loud, cry for others, and dance with abandon.  You will live.

 

I must tell you that you will meet a woman who will break your heart open just when you believe it had closed for good.  She will shatter the world as you know it, and open your eyes to another world, previously unknown. She, too, will have traveled her road of glory and pain.  For you see, as much as you have learned before you met, so, too, did she.  One ordinary day, you will happen by – lightly, without announcement or pretense and shatter her world and open her eyes to another world, previously unknown.

 

Without even knowing that you each were incomplete, you will complete one another.  Without even knowing you have just begun to live, you will begin.

 

Learn, grow, live and remain open to love.

 

With all the love in my heart,

 

Mk

Roots and Wings

For nine delicious months,

I was your home.

At first, I hardly even knew you were there

save for the seven (yes seven)

positive tests lined up on our bathroom counter.

and the months of relentless fatigue

which made me feel

like such a lightweight. 

It was only later I found out the

fatigue was my body working diligently

to prepare your home.

(I think I learned this on Oprah.)

I loved being pregnant.

I loved every single moment of it.

I grinned. I glowed.

I had complete confidence

in my ability to care for you.

In loaning my belly to you,

I found such purpose.
 

Month over month

your body grew within mine.

Secretly, I felt smug about this.

I had the privilege of knowing you

in a way no one else ever would.

I had the privilege of knowing you first.

Many others would come into your life later,

but I got the first nine months.

 

Knowing you as I do today,

your birth was pure you.

You took your time.

Forty-two hours of labor,

four hours of pushing,

and, reluctantly, you came into the world.

The life-sustaining cord that connected us

was ironically wrapped around your little neck.

You were purple, limp,

and the birthing room seemed

to move in slow and silent motion

in spite of the flurry of activity

by those working to save you.

In cutting the cord, we were separated

and your life began. 

Eighteen years have passed and

I see the woman you have become.

Young, but a woman all the same.

She is strong, sure of herself,

and every bit as resistant

to changes in her environment

as she was at birth.

I still feel smug that I knew her first. 

This woman, my daughter, is leaving home

to seek out her own life.

Although I know she is ready

and has everything she needs within her,

tears come so easily these days.

My heart is heavy with the knowledge

I won’t tuck her in every night.

I won’t see her grumpy-cat face each morning.

I won’t make big breakfasts for her friends

who have flocked to our home for years.

I want to hold you forever,

but this is not how it works.

You have the roots of your home,

your family, your friends, and your own heart.

You have the wings of your confidence,

your tenacity, your creativity, and your vision.

You have roots and wings, my darling daughter

and with these, you will fly high but know

you may always return to the touchstone of your home

when you need it.

You are ready. 

The cord is being severed once again

and in cutting the cord, we will be separated

so a new chapter of your life can begin.

 

~ Mk Michaels, 2014

 

This poem has been published on elephant journal
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/12/roots-wings-poem/

Six of the Best

In the silence before the storm,
deceptively innocent in
appearance,
the slender reed waits.

I chose to be here.
I came willingly and in need of deep catharsis,
wanting my outside to match my
shredded inside.
Mostly though, I came seeking cleansing and reclamation of my own power,
knowing I would find it.

A positioning tap, an upward swish and
a whistle on its return trip down,
sends searing white-hot lightening across my whole-milk thigh.
Thunder cracks the silence, (my skin) and
a scream echoes inside my head,
but stops cold as I fight to simply inhale.
Pain blooms clear to the bone
and molten lava runs across my lap
dripping down my inner thighs.
Six of the best or
half a dozen of the other,
but really all the same.

I wrestle with self preservation and,
exhaling the shallow breath I have drawn,
break the expectant silence once again
…Thank you, Sir, may I have another?

Being the one ultimately in control,
the implication of my own directive surges through me 
the radiance long held invisibly within my being escapes my chest,
blinding all who might come near,
save for the most courageous.

In an instant, everything was changed.

~ Mk Michaels, 2010

Trash Day

On Tuesday and Friday mornings,
the pickings are good.

Heaped curbside in obscene sculptures, an ode to our waste,

lay one woman’s trash…and your treasure.

 

Amid the refuge and rubbish

are Glad and Hefty reminders,

glories and sins of our past.

 

Benches, barstools and beds.

Doors, dressers and doghouses

Windows, washers and wicker.

 

Having spent time at the curb myself,

sightseeing, seeking and searching

I understand your inclination to

poke and prod, hopeful in your quest to find

exactly what you need,

the one thing which will make you happy.

 

We have thrilled in our respective hunts.

Telling and retelling tales of our

quarry and conquests,

each coveting that which the other possesses.

 

I have been there myself,

seeing at first glance

glistening and golden

gifts from those yet unknown.

Finding, upon closer inspection,

that all that glitters is not gold.

Some is simply trash and best left alone.

 

Curiously,

I find myself among that which you have

discarded and disregarded.

Taking up residence at your curbside I sit and wait

for the next treasure hunter to

catch my eye, find my worth

and take me home.

 

~ Mk Michaels, 2008