among the wildflowers

I am imagining your beautiful skull
clean and white and gleaming in another forest
as beautiful as when it was covered by your skin
soft and creased and lips puckering to welcome mine

I am imagining the creatures that are feasting on you, much as I clung to the words we shared, the love we shared, surrounding you and enclosing you as you surrounded and enclosed me

You have given yourself to the world as you have yourself to me, completely and unabashedly.

You are the most unselfish person. The only way to continue is to follow your lead.

the backyard at Brian’s – Sundown Wild Forest

thursday evening, 8:18p 4th september 2025

I miss your kisses
There haven’t been any since I kissed you last.
I can hear you telling me that I need to be kissed.
I miss the way you look at me
the way you see me
There has not been any of that, either
except in the glimmer I catch from the corner of my vision
People listen to me, for a time, because I have interesting and useful things to say
but then they go.
You stayed, staid.
Sturdy and safe, secure.
My haven in the wilderness.
The wilderness surrounding me seems to be balancing out, equalizing with the wilderness within
much as a bucket of water surrounding a bag of hard clay will soften it.
I sit in your chair, having eaten, smoking
I can feel your huge hands on my shoulders, surprising you the first time you did so by how hard they are, belying the soft surroundings
I grinned at you, happy to have pleased you, pleased myself with my complexity.

I wasn’t done with our conversation.
It is unfinished.
There is so much more to say.

329p tuesday 2nd september 2025

I think about how disturbing it was, to the woods, to the forest
When I found you dead and began screaming.
Sitting here on your porch two months later in the near-quiet midday, only the occasional screen door squeak and slam, the crickets, the
what is that banging is it gunshots
of the deep woods
I think about how deeply I offended the forest, tearing her air open that way, and how she has welcomed me in.
How, in this peaceful deep quiet she has comforted me, presented her ever-evolving palette.

2833

Last night I had a better night’s sleep than I have in I don’t know how long. Maybe years. Maybe ever.

There are still so many things to improve about my situation and yet I am better off now in so many ways than I ever have been.

The things that I don’t have in comparison to the things that I do have are far outweighed.

I know who is on my side, who is in my corner, and I know I don’t have to truck with anyone who isn’t.

I know that my strangeness isn’t something to be tolerated and dealt with but something to be seen and witnessed, and made room for.

I know that being here in this space in this time with these people is magic. I only wish that you could see how they love me and how I love them.

I think it would make you happy to see me finally stand up for myself in a way that doesn’t diminish anyone.

I think that perhaps I have evolved into the truly magical girl you met. Whatever you saw, whoever she was, I think she is me now.

I no longer feel as if I am trying to live up to the expectations of a dead man. I think I finally understand that you really did only want the best for me and saw the best in me. You truly were my biggest fan, and the frustration that you felt in my unreadiness only ever was suffused by your joy a few times in our lives. A few times that were such incredible examples of your joy that it made all of the rest difficult to bear and understand. I can see, from this side now, what it must have looked like and how you knew I was smarter than that. But I wasn’t, I couldn’t be yet. It had nothing to do with smarts. Just a traumatized body’s unwillingness to let go of the familiar for the possible.

I don’t know what is coming next for me, only what I hope for. And I do hope for things: for more peace, for more stability, for more safety and calm.

I miss you, Gary, 2833 days gone. I don’t miss the wondering if I am okay. I don’t miss the not knowing that you loved me; if you loved me. I don’t miss being afraid to ask for what I desperately needed for fear of ridicule and rejection. I don’t miss the contempt and derision. I don’t miss knowing that others saw our terribleness.

I know that the people who love me, love me. I don’t have to guess. I won’t ever have to again.

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.

the time traveling doctor. 7a 20th november, 2020

Every time I have seen JJ since my husband’s death it’s all I can be reminded of. How long it’s been. I know I mention it every time I see him and I have found myself unable to stop doing so. I realize (every single time) that this is not conducive to doing more business, or good for his comfort, or for mine, in fact. His profession means that he’s going to have to deal with surviving spouses, possibly more than he thought. I don’t want to keep doing this. I don’t want to keep focusing on only that anytime I see him and I fear that I may have risked ever seeing him again because I can’t stop talking about it.

Listening to The New York Times Daily podcast this morning and an interview with a woman who was a medical examiner in rural Wisconsin, who explains that she understands that as a last responder, her presence is triggering for some people forever.

Do I think that I can rewrite my own code for this relationship? Do I think that I can rewire my brain to be thankful that one of my husband’s cardiologists is such a lovely, sweet, kind person instead of having the first and only reaction to him being one of the last attendants to my husband?

Yes. Yes of course I do.
My brain is nothing but elasticity and electricity and muscle and if the past 1,164 days have shown me nothing else it is this.

Most recently, I have been learning how love can help to reframe old photographs, to view memories through a different lens. To not make excuses for, but to understand motivation. To take this current love into the past and care for the people who were hurt. To let that healing wend its way forward into the future, to meet up with the realization I have now.

I wish you could see me now. I wish you could know me, now.

Conversations after midnight. 22 January, 2020

J came over last night. I don’t think I can see him anymore.

It was so good. Right up to the point where he told me about all the amazing things he’s seen, the art, the museums.
With the girlfriend who doesn’t know.

I had actually forgotten just how good he is. I made the mistake of saying that, too. That I had forgotten.

I really don’t think I can see him anymore. It’s just way too upsetting. And now he’s gone and I don’t know when I’m going to see him again. I asked him, right before he left, when will I see you again? “I don’t know.”

He’s never going to tell her. And why should he? He’s content with the way things are. He has two other partners who are willing to be with him and not worry about being a secret.

I cried. I told him that I wasn’t going to say that I was sorry. That I wasn’t going to apologize. That I wasn’t going to apologize for saying the things that I said. I will never not be truthful and it hurts.

I told him that I can’t give him any of the things that she gives him. I can’t give him any of those things. The museums, the trips, the fancy dinners. The introductions to people who are so special.

He said, you give me enough, more than enough. But obviously it isn’t. I wish I didn’t care. I told him that, too.

The tldr version is: I should have said no to him coming over.

Because now I feel gutted. I really don’t like feeling this way. Especially since it could have been avoided.

I asked him specifically to not talk about her because he cannot talk about me in front of her. So no, he didn’t say her name. But boy motherfucking howdy did he tell me all the wonderful things they did together.

Why would he do that, you ask?

He was excited to tell me about all of the art. And I was excited about all of the art. Until he told me where it was and why he was there.

And that’s when I started to cry.

I think he has mostly good intentions. I don’t think he sets out to hurt me. But he is an old dog and apparently is unable to learn a new trick. To not kiss and tell.

I asked him if she knew what she had with him. If she understood just exactly how lucky she was with him. No upside to that conversation and I already knew the answer because I knew how lucky I felt, had felt, when we were together.

She does know. She loves him very much.

And because he is charming and so very talented, people remember why they don’t say no to him. I’m not going to do it anymore.

I didn’t sign up for this, being a secret with him. I said that last night, too.

He said, “I know.”
I know. Not bloody helpful.