Ugly Like Me...

How do you fill a page? A person?

How do you  fill a page? I think I’m realizing the empty  page only represents the holes in a person. Well, my holes. I write about my holes. My ghosts. Anything gaping or amiss.

I can hear someone from far away in my past calling me a “little shit” as I run down the block with something stolen. A box of Swedish fish or something. I can't see that far, save for my sweet, red mustache. It's been decades.

I don’t steal now.  I write. Sort of. Not of late actually. I'm still a little shit. I still hear it all the time.

This is ironic because I have been sick, and laid up in bed, able to write, but nothing to say. My laptop lays beside me, pissed and pushed aside.  

“Have you been writing?” he asked on the tellie. “No.” I said incredulously. “Well why?” he mirrored back my in-credulousness.

“I have nothing to say.”

I always think, right now, I can't really walk because God just wants me to lay. To be still. To learn. To write is to be stirred. It is constant haunting. A living word you can’t outrun. And it hurts.

If it’s honest, it hurts. I’m not sure why my words work that way for me. I do find pain and beauty to be siblings, however. So it’s not totally a bad thing. But sometimes, I just need to be still on some level. I don't need anymore pain or beauty. I just need to BE. And most of all, I need to be UNSEEN.

The pain in my spine zaps me. Takes up all the space I have for pain. And my thoughts just lie still. My spine isn’t moving, but the pain alone takes off and I  can’t quite catch my breath or my thoughts. It needs a bench. A bed. Some rest.

I DO catch myself thinking of her initials though. She’s in my head. Heart. Same thing. If I write, surely she will come out.

The thing is I don’t want her to come undone. He’s undressed her, bedded her, wed her and up and left Women are much more stronger than them. I want to fill her up, poke fingers into her abysses, cover her holes; complete her with kindness. Stop her from spilling. But I can’t.

Maybe we can just sit and listen to our favorite music. Be still.

He left her to find appreciation. Quietly, I sit with that thought. I repeat it to myself like a question. Where does one go to be appreciated? There’s no appreciation store.

He has holes and no fingers and no foresight to plug them. Maybe he just needs a bench to sit and rest a while. Maybe she needs to learn to drive. Maybe it will resolve itself.

If someone doesn’t feel “appreciated” why is that always the other person’s problem? What if you love them, thank them, hold them, touch them, tell them and they don't FEEL it. Whose problem is that?

Maybe we just all need to fill up empty pages and write about what really plagues us (us) and stop blaming it on other people. Be who we want to be. Every letter a rung in a tree to a secret fort we never knew we withheld. What if we all woke up and looked at ourselves, instead of our partner or whoever, and asked ourselves how we could we be better today?

I believe the holes would start closing. Mending. Souls filling. Loving, unending.

I think my entire life has been about people picking on other people, pointing fingers but never trying to hold someone together. It’s always been picking apart. I was there. I was part of it. It all seems so…silly now. But the danger we must have caused.

 And I can’t fill her up, plug her up, keep her in, because she’s good. She’s all there. There’s nothing for me to fix.

Perhaps my letters and words are my rungs, yours may be steps or miles run, or books or service or service or service, but you do have a secret fort M. I know it, M. I have been there because I go to mine. But what the book doesn’t tell you is no one else is invited into YOUR fort. No one else is safe there. No one else can gaze out of your window on a summer day and swat a fly while overlooking a lazy pond nearby. That’s just for you. It’s always been for you.

It was never for him. No one else is invited.

But he is more than welcome to build his own. Encourage him to find the strength to build, to make it look like no other.

Maybe that’s all love is, the encouragement of another to find their fort.

I have many forts. They plug the holes.

I lie like Lidia. We will never be the same.

The spring air, wafts, bumping into my back

It feels like a caress,

But still,

I tend to scratch.

An acknowledgment.

A "thank you" back.

 

I lean into it and try to keep my focus,

As I write my goodbyes.

The caress tells me that spring has been lifted

Like Jesus, resurrected.

My words, a dissension

Of lies.

 

My family, us sinners, gifted.

Though not worthy.

I thank You for this grace.

This shame you have lifted.

But I can’t quite bury these lies of love

As hard as I dig.

My words a mannequin.

The shovel a wig.

And I know you know it all:

She was never nearly as lovely,

or slender, so tall.

 

Despite the shame, I’m so full of wonder.

How hard did spring fight against winter,

To free itself, asunder.

Or did it turn the other cheek

Until God kept the promise

The resurrection of the meek.

A promise to all those in whatever they seek.

 

All this talk of resurrection

And chocolate bunnies and dyed eggs.

My head spins. The dye numbs my legs.

I want to collect all the shit in the backyard,

Like the kids who are searching so hard.

Collect all the junk and the eggs, even my legs,

And the lies and place them into one giant bin.

Perhaps the one I have cultivated and sculpted within.

The same place I tend to hide all these lies.

My secret, sacred cave.

Human made.

 

These "things" are a staunch contradiction from the spiritual

To the earthly side.

I see no connection.

I only see lies.

 

Especially as I loom near your body,

Leaving you on the ground.

Confused – are you near or not?

Not confused - I’ll never be same.

I know that YOU are sound.

And I take peace in that.

Maybe I will drive up the parkway today,

Sit with Danny’s bones.

Have a chat.

Yes, he will lend me peace today.

 

Death changes me, though

I am not the one who walked to the other side.

It always changes my world.

Switches things up.

Takes my toolbox and places into the shed,

When God knows we always kept it in the hallway closet.

It comes down and hides my pearls.

It is a mischievous thing.

 

I have been changed.

You may call me Lidia now.

We were always the ones to blame.

Yet we could always legitimize it somehow.

And I can’t anymore.

Not knowing what I know now.

I lie like Lidia.

 

I’m on my knees begging for forgiveness.

I know what He sees.

Tagged on my heart. An urban form

Of art and prayer.

Some see it as pollution.

I really don’t care.

There is beauty and art and truth

In the words that lie there.

 

And He always looms here.

He knows what I am.

A scam.

And I don’t want to be that.

I just want to be humble and fueled by selfless love,

A servant.

 

But then I think of you and your body.

And the still cold ground where

The bunnies burrow in my backyard.

The Earth, and this world, and the love and the lies

And the discernment so hard.

I never knew.

 

It’s just too hard because it wasn’t meant to be.

I was always fueled to love you

In ways I never could.

Words that could never be said, let alone

Understood.

So I thought I was serving.

I thought I was good.

But I was wrong.

Because it was never written from He.

We were never authors of the story no matter

How hard we tried to be.

 

I have served you for way too long.

As you have served me, lovingly,

But our good was never good enough,

And never will be.

Not until we are asunder.

Like waves and the moon

And T.S. Elliot.

A perfect, synchronic blunder.

 

Like the resurrected Christ

Who died for our sins.

There is no room left in my manger

Or my inn.

It’s be taken.

It’s been named.

Appointed by God for His son.

Jesus was His name.

Never mind ours.

We will never be the same.