standing alone in my kitchen
wearing the last pair of socks I knitted for my husband
dead five years now.
evidence
there is evidence of life all around me
physically around me
in my phone
noise and activity and adventure
and fun.
companionship.
i can hear it in the air, in the neighborhood
music and the leaves high up in the canopy
and the cars going by mostly in the right direction
in my messages is proof that life is ongoing
why do i feel so detached from it all
none of it belongs to me.
consequences
There are conversations that need to happen.
There are people that need to be confronted.
There are people who need to know exactly how I feel about them, about the things that they’ve done.
There are people who need to stand in front of me while I fume and scream and rage in their motherfucking faces.
There are people who need to stand in front of me and look me in the motherfucking eyes while I scream at them.
There are people who need to listen to the things I have to say.
What I would really like actually, is to punch these people.
To hit them, to punch them in their stupid fucking faces. To rip them limb from limb to tear them fucking apart.
I want to make these people bleed people I want them to bleed and suffer and scream in pain
I want them to know exactly what they’ve done.
I would like to take these people’s skulls and smash them into the ground I would like to watch their brains spill all over the sidewalks.
I would like their blood and guts and gore to run into the gutters.
DO YOU GET IT YET DO YOU?
do you get it?
No I am not okay. No.
I will never be okay you keep fucking with me I will never be okay.
5:09pm 13th september 2022
One thousand, eight hundred twenty six days ago was the last time I heard your heart beat next to my face.
I miss you.
I miss you every day.
I am glad you saved me from hearing your voice that day, already altered by the stroke.
I am glad your face was already placid and sedate when you heard me telling you that I loved you. I can imagine the smile.
You were actively dying.
You knew I would be angry for not waiting and you knew I would understand.
You were dying and you saved me.
You have saved me.
You have saved me.
ongoing
it’s pure fear in my brain
in my skull
full of open-mouthed terror and no
No no no no no
(mouth opens wide as if to scream but no sound comes out)
it is as if my brain knows not to attach worry to the unchangeable
my brain is so quick to send out the orders
but my body, my body says otherwise
there is nothing and everything specific
the overwhelming state of my life
I smoke and smoke and smoke and cough so hard I puke
there is still no lift, no elevation.
it will fucking pass
it will.
I have to be patient.
952am 6th september 2022
I am sitting in my car, unmoving
Right foot on the dashboard
Smoke nearly filling the cabin, rain outside
Grim and grey and compressing me into this small, flattish wafer of a person
I am so alone and I do not want to be so alone but I cannot go anywhere
I do not want to go anywhere I do not want to go out in this
The things that I know will make me happy I cannot find the energy to begin to think about doing,
There is too much preamble.
I think about curling up in the shower and letting the water beat down on me as I lay on the floor of the tub
I think about crawling back into bed and never getting out
I think about my hand my shoulder cramping as I clutch this pipe and cannot smoke enough weed to make me feel better no there is not enough to make me feel better
I do not want advice.
I just want some fucking relief.
1818
If I knew what was to come
what could I change
what could I do
If I knew 5 years ago right now what was to come what would I do.
If I could see this moment right now where I am,
unshowered for days,
sitting outside in a public secret space with my coffee and my weed
the constant anxiety manifesting in different ways now.
I may look calm but I am not.
Everything is so heavy, so fucking heavy.
I could not change a single thing, I know that.
Five years. Five.
I need this time I have needed this time
I need more
time.
(((but where am i?)))
I lose sight, I lose connection
I lose my self
I am unsupervised and there is no corral
no border
no boundaries but the ones I hold to and they are so very shaky
the only (??) difference being that I have become better at holding to them i just*
let go of that terrible, engulfing need
(let go or be dragged.)
or am i just so tired that I cannot summon the effort
I need to think need to believe that this is something I have done that I have wrought within myself
to life, to life.
Salty tears fall; light up, breathe in.
Ex h a l e .
it is all I can do to keep breathing.
*just. as if.
731am 83122
it is getting close to the end, again.
five years ago this was your last two weeks on Earth.
You didn’t know, I didn’t know.
No one did, no one could.
I turned off facebook memories for those first three years, it’s too much.
(there have been years gone by, now, years without you. Years.)
“those first three years” is a terrifying thing to say out loud.
i digress.
As the memories come up for this week, though, I am warmed again by the things I see, the things you responded to, the way you responded. all not knowing what will come,
all perfectly normal and routine and lighthearted and me rapidly cycling, clutching fast to anything stable
and then there is this yawning pit that opens and will never, ever close
unhinges its jaws and
e v e r y t h i n g in my life hurries in, disappearing.
it is only now, close to the end, again
that i am beginning to see my way
but is it clear? no, not yet.
one thousand, eight hundred thirteen days.
how many more will there be
I wish you got to see
I wish you got to see me today
I have my new glasses
My curls; the color of the hydrangea we planted out front
and the porcelainberries that grow wild out back.
hopefully soon they will belong to someone else
someone else who will take so many closeup photos of them.
The curve of the tip of my nose
I wish you could see it.
You would kiss it.
Maybe.
Probably.
I’d like to think you would.
742a 5 july 2022
breezy, uncertain
i woke to grey light, dim
the temporary buoyancy of yesterday,
the day before
gone.
sometime in the night it left,
stole away, slunk away
embarrassed to have lifted only to leave
“i’m sorry,”
whispers on the breeze
“i’m sorry, that wasn’t for you.”
i’m sorry that wasn’t for you.
my shoulders all wound together
knit together, snicked tightly, bound.
the hand that holds my pipe tensed and clawed
the tips of my fingers white from the pressure
unclench your hand, look at your fingers.
sit up, you don’t have to get up.
sit up straight, you can stretch.
you remember most of it.
take in deep breaths of this shaded air
look up
aggressively blue sky hidden (thankfully)
mostly by the canopy
there are a lot of silvery clouds breaking up the blue
today feels very uncertain,
I feel the mania pulling my shoulders together
i will do everything that I can but there is only
so
much
available.
The Salty Widow 