Let It Burn

  1/24/24 “I see you. Over there. I haven’t forgotten. I need this time for them. It’s bedtime stories and brushing teeth time. I will come get you when it’s done”, I tell my child named Sorrow.  I thought I had to banish Sorrow. I sent her to the darkness, and she yelled at me in defiance," WHERE HAVE YOU SENT ME? YOU JUST DON’T WANT ME TO EXIST! I’M HERE, WHY DO YOU HATE ME?" And her screams seeped out as my biting tone to a child who didn't comply, as my sharp tongue to my husband, as the weariness wanting to numb with scrolling, or food, or sex, or weed. I hadn’t learned the darkness was inside me. Dear banished Sorrow was ever present, screaming from inside me. I thought she was banished to the Outside, but she remained Inside all along. Afraid I would never look her in the eyes. Afraid she was too ugly and too messy to ever be held by me. To ever be known by me.  Sorrow, you are not ugly. You are powerful. I was afraid of your power. Afraid of your strength. It'...

  1/24/24 I slept almost 12 hours last night. I could’ve slept more. There isn’t enough sleep, or coffee, or podcasts, or ‘add to cart’-and-never-buy-its for a heart rendered raw, the edges like the serrated spoon my grandma used when eating her morning grapefruit.  In the standstill of rawness, the rest is a whizzing past me train. I can feel the wind it causes. I grab my cardigan tighter still, wishing I’d worn a parka. What does a parka for my heart look like? Feel like? What store sells those? This is a moment in time. A moment in  my  time. It’ll fade, or bolden. I don’t know yet. It’s a preview of hell for a mother who watches her child suffer. That preview isn’t removing my heart entirely. Would that hurt less? The million tiny cuts that create the serration hurt like hell. And I feel the wind of the train taunting me to smile and be fine….because Capitalism. because It Could Be Worse. because There are still so many joys and I should find them. It could alway...