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it's so hard to be without you
lying in the bed, you are so much to be without…*

it is a bit north of nine am and i am driving
i am driving back up to the pottery, we are firing
we are firing and i am needed
i am needed.
i have promises to keep on my way so i do.

(i don’t remember whether the windows are open or closed;)
i am trying to remember whether it was the air conditioning or the wind that made me question
question whether i was hearing what i was.

(a few days ago ((five))
a few days ago i was insane
insane and unable to stop it

a year (?) ago i made the decision to microdose psychedelics
a couple of months ago i decided for true, and asked for help.
a few days ago i began.
i wept, shaking, shared my fear, and help came.
i did as i was bid.
i am nothing if not a good girl.

rattles in my head that empty drum filled with doubt
Everything you lose, the wisdom will find its way out

i am driving. i am listening
have been listening.
i am hearing more?
somehow the music is filling the cabin differently,
more, more separately?
more.
i can discern and follow discrete instruments and still pay attention to the words,
and it is as if the more i am noticing this the more complex it appears
while remaining fluid and whole.

i am driving home, we are done for now.
i am driving and have restarted the song
having remembered that i have this to write, to explore.
the guitars are so ripe and juicy and it is as if i can taste them.
I am heading home to Mojo.
I am heading home to no one to share my day with.
there is no one to see my face, to watch my eyes flash
as the overwhelming love i have explodes
I am balancing that thought with conversation, albeit one-sided
you aren’t there to tell
you aren’t there.

the instant, truthful thought that makes me swallow my thought as the breath to express it escapes my lips
but you were never happy for me
you were never excited for me.

but what if you were?
in the end, especially the very end but that last year
you began to see me
really see me maybe the way you did when we first met.
maybe for the first time in a very long time.

Every night is lonesome and is longer than before
Nothing really matters anymore
It's so hard to be without you
Used to feel so angry and now only I feel humble
Stinging from the storm inside my ribs where it thunders
Nothing left to say or really even wonder
We are like a book and every page is so torn
Nothing really matters anymore
It's so hard not to call you

So I do.

Thunder's in my bones out in the streets where I first saw you
When everything was new and colorful, it's gotten darker
Every day's a lesson…

The noise without no longer scares me.
It’s the noise within that does, always has.
But maybe hearing the separations, the pieces untangled
maybe
maybe that is how i untangle the noise within.

*To Be Without You, Ryan Adams

Home. 10 November, 2019.

…a braver man I never met.

Gary is finally home.

It doesn’t hold all of his cremains that I have left.
It doesn’t have to. It holds enough.
I’ll scatter the rest in places he liked.

I think I can finally go, now.

17 September, 2019

bisque-fired black clay cinerary, going into the salt kiln on Halloween.

Sunday brings your birthday, and with it, more work on the cinerary I’ve finally been able to make for you. I thought I’d be able to make it and fire it that first year — I thought a lot of things that first year.

I thought I’d be able to get this place cleaned up and out.
I thought I’d be able to handle getting our taxes done.
I thought I’d be able to apply for your social security death benefit.
I thought I thought I thought…

I knew nothing of the overwhelming and all-consuming grief that would completely take over my life: not all of it, no, but it is insidious, its tendrils curling into every single aspect of my life, twisting around the things that keep me going, threatening to cut off air, blood, sanity.

I am not the same person I was a year ago.
I am not the same person I was two years ago.
I have become more patient and less tolerant.
More open and less willing to bend.
More sure, more confident. Quieter, calmer.
I react differently to things now.
I am able to let go, to let things slip away when they matter not.
It is taking me by surprise; I wonder how you would react to this girl?
This girl who has finally had to grow up?

It’s you, you know, you’re the reason. The catalyst.

I only wish you could see me now.
I think you would be proud.
I know I am.