Rilke said everything is gestation and then birthing I know this is true because the second time I was born after he broke everything not just my heart after I spoke everything not just my heart and years moved and my soul moved mutely in the dark unsayable nothing I emerged from that womb
Tag: Solitude
Morning affirmations
I open my kitchen blinds and gape at the hawk, perched on the garden lamp at the edge of my lawn. She notices everything with those prehistoric, ravening eyes, like two old stars, charged with origin stories far more savage than mine. She isn’t here to sing— She’s here to scream— To tear meat from…
Closed Curtains
Winter drops the late afternoon sun into my bedroom window just after three o’clock. He hovers there— burning the edges of my closed curtains like an eclipse I can touch. He says, you have to invite me in, which I find charming. My palms hover over the fabric, pin-holed from cats, reminding me of that…
Change is overrated
If there’s one thing that recovering alcoholics excel at it’s self-flagellation. Maybe it’s not just recovering alcoholics, but any one of us mid-way through life’s journey lost in a dark wood. It seems the first thing we ask is what can I change? Should I lose weight. Read more. Travel. Fix up the house. Find…
One Year Sober!
The last time I tried to get sober, I remember feeling elated at my almost 6-month milestone. I felt then like one might expect I would feel today. But I don’t. Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for the strength that allowed me to arrive at this day, but my celebration is tempered by…
Black Widow
Your sleek, black body pressed on the stucco wall in my backyard should have frightened me, Latrodectus— But instead I felt like I did as a child, crunching through the woods, achingly aware of things greater than myself. I made your acquaintance then, discovering that you go days without breathing, you bond to vertical surfaces,…
6 Months Sober
“You can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore before you decide to be happy.” Nightbirde
Nepeta Cataria
If I accomplished nothing else today, I planted Nepeta cataria inside the broad mouth of a flowerpot leftover from my grandfather’s passing. I held a ponytail of her sticky locks and considered long the origin of her species, the ancient quality of dirt unearthed with five extra heaves of the shovel, and of Annie Dillard…
Independence Days
This slow Saturday breeze in my brain turned over an old photograph of us on my parent’s roof, Fourth of July. There I was, deep in the crook of your neck, my gentle grin holding the secret of your scent and my eyes the knowledge of our daughter, beneath our bodies, sleeping on that tiny…
Sobriety Poet 