My beloved husband, Kent, died in January 2012, 3 years after diagnosis of a brain tumour. Our son was 2 1/2 and our daughter 3 months old. He and I were far too young. I am now hurtling through the black space of life without him.

Wednesday 13 July 2016

Remedy

I take a pill
to lift my spirits during the day
but at night
they raise spirits in my dreams
that leave me exhausted by morning
and add to the conveyor belt of dreams
of you dying and living and dying again.
"Your brain needs time to heal," she said.
I lie in a bath
waiting for the salt to sink in between my bones
but it can't seem to find its healing way in
to the pain in my heart
that lies wounded in its own salty sting.
I wrap my arms
around a little sleeping body
to try and fill the aching space in front of me
but it doesn't stop them from reaching invisibly
for you every morning.
I swallow potions
because the labels say
they will stop me from fighting and flying
now that there's nothing left to fight
but they don't hold enough magic
to lift the lid off the sky
so that I can see your face.

Saturday 6 February 2016

Thirty six at four

I have thirty six hours alone and as I walk along the sand, able to think, I can only think:

My beloved is gone and I'm losing a friendship and the world appears to be made only of lovers walking hand in hand, and the breaking waves are pure perfection.

Four years, all that, and today this is all I know.

Motel after midnight

I'm stuck in a motel room and this pain inside of me is as big as the city we're staying in, and the one who was keeping me afloat (and more) is no longer interested in being a boat. I silence the sounds of pain and sit and listen instead to my kids' breathing, their limbs sliding out of bed on this hot night, and I try not to think of the words that describe the feelings, and hope that the pain in my belly isn't caused by this city-sized, multi-storied-now grief... and I never was made to leave midnight far behind me.

(Written mid January, NP)

It still does

My arm stretches out across the place where you used to lie
and I can't understand how it can reach across
the entire breadth and being of a man.
You used to be alive
in the space of my one small arm.
You used to hear my hand reaching
out across the sheets in the dark,
and know that it needed yours. 

(Written mid January, NP)