Proof of Life

 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 always be worse. Worse than what? I don’t even know yet.

I know I rage that tiny hearted men rule the world into old their age, and young, big hearted people suffer. Lacking resources to rest and dream because those tiny hearted men refuse to build a world with room for them. 

“It’s not fair”. I pull my cardigan tighter and stomp my mental feet in a tantrum. I stomp once, twice…damn, that’s all I have energy for. And I crumble. My heart says “not yet, babe”. Save that for later. There will always be time to tantrum. To be mad about the dishes left in rooms, and wet towels on floors, and “you used the last and didn’t write it on the list” because it’s much easier to be all of that than dare let the bloody mess of sorrow seep out into everything. It’s so heavy and it stains. 

Well, let it stain. Proof of life.