"What do you want me to say?"

What I want to hear, you could never tell me.

Because what I want to hear is somebody loved me.

That somebody still loves me, older, heavier, weathered and still a little broken.

What I want to hear as I fall asleep,next to someone that watches the rise and fall of my chest is "thank for being here, thank you for staying on the days you contemplated leaving us. Thank for staying long enough to let God direct your path to me".

I want to hear that there are days someone feels lost without me.

What I want to hear is that someone misses me.

I want to hear someone say "I see you. I see who you are" and acknowledge me like they do.

I want to hear that someone loves me enough to love me openly, honestly and unashamed of me.

I want to hear that someone will stay to build amd grow a relationship with me. 

What I want to hear is that someone is willing to pour into me as I pour into others.

I wanted to hear that I mattered.

On the chin

I worry about myself soemtimes. I feel like ive gotten way to confortable with goodbyes. 

I think about the death of my father. I didn't mourn long. I also didn't mourn him specifically, but rather what having your father in your life was supposed to be. Something he never was. 

Holidays come and go and i do not think of him. His birthday and the day he die pass and i dont even recall that its passed until weeks later. Honestly I can't even tell you what day he died, just that it was in September, I think. 

I wonder if I'm supposed to feel some huge loss, if I am supposed to feel a loss i can never quite reciver from. I don't. Even when he left I felt nothing. Understandable, given our relationship was a violent one.

Even so I like many others watch shows and documentaries about worse situations and these people openly mourn their fathers. Yet here I am feeling nothing.

It makes me think maybe something is wrong or broken in me. The man died horribly. In a hospital alone, an abcess in his abdomen ruptured and started to poison him. Subsequently he died of a heart attack, alone. Funny how those details i remember. 

Funnier still there are 400 dollars sitting in a bank account in Puerto Rico that only I can claim. 

And I am in no rush.

I don't know maybe its me, maybe i just dont have any empathy to spare for people that clearly never gave a fuck about me. 

words

As much as i love words and weaving them to express myself and my feelings they are simply not enough for me.

For me I have, far too often, been given and gifted words followed by contrary actions.  This triggers a deep wound in me. Taking me back to a place and time where the people who hurt me the most were the ones saying "I love you". A place where I was at my most vulnerable. 

So contradictions and, even worse, a refusal to clarify strikes a deep chord of fear within me. It makes me physically uncomfortable. Similar to constantly expecting the worst. A feeling that takes an immense toll on me and one that I have worked hard to stay far from.

Everyone wants to be thought of, considered, feel safe and have clarity on where they stand. 

I dont want to guess. I want to know. I shouldnt have to guess how you feel about me after I let you access my life.

Maybe I'm alone in this, but i truly do want to feel safe and at peace with someone. It just feels as if everything I want is on the other side of a broken bridge that spans across a rough and raging river. 

And I cannot swim.

Your choice, always your choice

You chose to pursue me.

You chose to kiss me.

You chose to be intimate with me.

You chose to feel ashamed of me.

You chose to prioritize the 

You chose to discard me.

You chose to reclaim me.

You chose to lead me on.

You chose to keep feelings that had shifted a secret.

You chose to omit the truth to keep me around.

At every turn I let you lead.

Asking for reassurance when, seemingly, bith of us felt the shift.

Stonewalled, called controlling, and painted as a sexual predator I still tried.

Stonewalled when asking for clarity on what we were or what you feeling or thinking.

Controlling for asking if you made it home okay after you spent an evening with a "friend" that had just asked you out.

Painted as a sexual predator when you failed to discuss your changed feelings and sexuality, and you accused me of trying to make you "gay".

The wounds weren't just surface cuts. They were chasms chipped into my personality and soul by you.

You changed the very nature of who I was. You sought to make me ashamed of being able to love you openly and proudly, because you were.

Something you still struggle with. Why else would you mention that you felt like we were being looked at like a novelty by those around us.

The way you cannot recognize that is something within how you view yourself and not how other view you is so heartbreaking.

I guess while you prayed for me to be healed from being gay I was praying that you would find whatever it is you were seeking for happiness.

I thought you had, but you haven't. 

Tables turn, lessons are learned and I can now choose. 

The pathway you opened isn't worth the work or censoring myself to keep from losing you.

You were never mine, we were never real. There is no amount of  rewriting or self editing that can ever hide the truth.

And if you think I'm wrong then maybe reread some of what you've written with a critical eye and work through why you felt it necessary to write some of what you have.

Because a conversation where people speak allows for language to slip and/or be misconstrued.

A piece of writing that you sat to compose, rewrite,edit, reveal, and be evasive with is something else entirely.

You cannot choose to return to a relationship that never existed. You cannot grow a garden of friendship if you do not tend to it.

Until you choose to consider me, I will continue to choose myself and wish you the best from afar.

Just a feeling

Walked my friend home. As we walked there was this 20 something kid on Lexington, yelling about needing help. Peripheral glance indicated he wasnt injured, he was either tipsy or high by sound of speech. 

There we are just two older women walking when he sights us. He bee lines towards us. We were in mid conversation when he rolled up fast talking. I immediately said "sorry papi, we don't got it or want it", and keep walking. He co tiniest following behind "I need help". I say again we dont have anything. He starts yelling about "i dont need money, I have food! Here see" again we keep walking. Its still a little isolated where we are so we keeping it pushing. He continues to follow, "we dont have anything for you", he spits out I need directions , I say "okay where you trying to go" he says "one hundred and twenty..." i immediately cut him  off "120 is that way,train station is this way" now he shifts starts talking about money "I dont need money, I got bands, I got 4 or 5 bands on me right now! I can show you! Let me show you!You wanna see it?"

"We dont need to see it. We good." We keep walking. He puts his book bag down and starts digging through it. He shouts from behind us "look, look, you in the black hoodie turn around and look" specifically calling out my friend.

There is a second, just a millisecond of understanding, processed through years of childhood trauma that makes me think there was a gun pointed at me in that very moment. Directly at my back. That thought was followed by "nah if hes gonna shoot me he is gonna have to look me in my face".

He trailed us until he ran into another loud mouth going in the opposite direction. My friend went home and I texted when I got back to my home. 

"Home. I think that kid had a gun in the bag."

"I do too." She wrote back.

Crazy night. I know if i had looked back i would have seen a gun pointed at me. I could feel it.

Simple prayers

I prayed 

Most nights on my knees

Asking that others remain protected and guided 

Happy and safe

Now I simply pray

That what is meant to harm me never finds me

And that I be allowed to forget

Everyone who has forgotten me

A simple prayer for my own peace.

Crone

I fear I am in the winter if my life.

For never shall I be a Mother.

No those days are past me now.

Much like when I was a Maiden.

Now, I rest. 

Watching the youth of the world shuffle down paths I almost did not return from.

Offering wisdom and Council as I see them off.

With half hearted assurances that all wil be well

That growth will cauterize wounds that never heal

That learning who you are again can heal the pain...

They don't. 

They simply change the shape and feel of it.

What was once a searing hot pain threatening to destroy you from within 

With memories that sting and scratch like thorns on a vine

Will eventually become a dull aching throbby in your chest

That will eventually become a twinge of your heart

::untitled::

I want to love you loudly 

Openly

I want to flirt with you in front of everybody

 Openly

I want to touch you

Openly

I dont care what they assume

I only care about what I know

You are my safety

Its never been about people being in my business 

Thats life 

Being curious is part of being human

Its always been about being hidden like something shameful

Can you love someone if you are ashamed of loving them?

Can you care for them if you are always consumed with what everyone else thinks?

I dont think so

Its so restrictive and oppressive 

Who wants to spend their life feeling like that?

Like you can never just love someone fully

Not me

I'd rather be alone

So alone I remain

Until someone loves me the way I need them too

pussyfoot

Some nights I lay here alone thinking over how some much has gone wrong and how so much has gone right.

One things keeps pulsating in my brain.  Like a neon sign in a bodega window. 

Why?

What was the motivation to open that door again if you were not going to step through it?

And, I know, deep inside I know because you are nothing if not predictable in your chaos. 

It makes me sad that almost two decades later you headed back in my direction solely to remind me I am not worth the effort to you.

I, of course knew that, I have always known that. 

I'm grateful though.  Even prior to our interaction the imagined "subbing" back and forth via twitter spoke volumes. I say imagined because to you I dont exist unless you pay attention to me, so I couldn't possibly have had relationships or been hurt by anyone else in my life, sarcastically.

You wanted to engage in bullshit one sided conversations like I am human complaint box, while I was trying to connect and relate to you and wasting my time like an idiot.

You do not and have not ever given a single iota of a damn about me. I only exist when I am useful to you. When you want to complain, or hint at an unhappy relationship. 

There was no desire to  try and learn who I have become or what my life is now, and given our shared past I understand that. I respect it. Its still doesnt explain the attempts to engage and the pussyfooting around real conversations.

Maybe I expect too much from someone who cant be bothered to give a little. 

Maybe I don't because they say the right person wont ever say you're too much.

In the end I think I just want to know that I matter enough to the people in my life that they would fight any awkwardness to remind me of that. 

Why hold onto someone or something you are so ambivalent about? You said there was nothing there for me. So why did you knock on my door? I live in obscurity, disconnected from any part of your world. You sought me out, you monitored my social media reacting to post, going as far as writing responses, as per your own admission. Why? Perhaps uncovering the "why" of that is where you will find you true center. 

I don't know. I have my own current struggles to tend to. I pray that you are well, I pray that you are safe.

A vision

There is something about DtMF that calls forth an emotional wave that I struggle against. It starts with a swell of memories, moments with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins that are no longer a part of my story. Then my friends, the ones no longer with us, how much they would have loved this moment,  the music the radical side of it. Memories of those that are still with me follow, the way we hold each other tightly, life rafts for each other in this sea of uncertainty.

The second wave is heartbreak. Heartbreak over the loss of relationships that always seemed more important to me. The inability to connect with family as a "no sabo" kid. The weight of recognizing that it is all a part of me, the history, the culture, the music but always having it just out of reach.

Then the ancestral percussion calls me back, saying "if you can feel this you need to come home", because if you know you know. And for a few moments the rhythm takes me, I lose myself in the sounds.

The wind down, is where it happens, I close my eyes. I can hear the sound of the sea gently lapping at the shore, feel the soft warmth of a rising sun on my skin and gently, like a gentle hand. The sky is peach and pink, I sit in a chair facing the sea watching the sunlight glitter off the surface like a millions diamonds strewn across a glass table. I smile, filled with a feeling of safety and love. Guard down, breathing easier because I am home, where I am wanted.

I hear the melody of DtMF softly playing, a hum like a thread running through everything, reminding me to stay present.  I can hear the rustling of the palm fronds behind me and feel someone emerging front them. There is no panic, just a feeling of expectation with some excitement. 

I can never see who it is, but I know I know them and I know I've been waiting for them.

Dangerous Creatures

On my way into work and I spotted one. Red jacket, fair complexion, hair dyed a dark almost maroon red. To hide the grays and whites and display some of her fire.

Hair captured in the wet look that can only be accomplished by Dep or Queen Helene gel.

Enough make up to make you guess her age but not enough to make you think shes a child. Its a mystery. 

A look and style that screams mother but also slightly unhinged "she still got it" aunt. A jacket so bright red you question is she bangs on the block.

A demeanor detached and cool, a level I could never dream of reaching. A stacked little body carrying a thickness that only comes with age or child bearing.The kind of woman that makes the back of your brain play "Electric Relaxtion" or "Back Seat" depending on how your day goes.

Her headphones in, bopping along to Marc Anthony, La India or some Mary J. Something that reminds her of all the struggles she overcame to get to this point. Broken hearts, useless men and friends that did her dirty. She is not to be fucked with. 

Loud as all hell when asking if the woman at the door wants her seat, no concept of volume level. She's small, loud and she has had to fight to be heard in more ways than one. A loudness that recalls holiday parties with loud music and a room full of cousins.

There she is folks the most dangerous creature on the planet. 

A Puerto Rican woman that survived.

The Three Cs

I've been thinking a lot about the changes and circumstances I've been through over the last year. How some have felt similar to instances in like a hit movie remade and repackaged 100 different ways.

Through it all, one thing remained consistent. I feel bad for returning the energy I've been given. I feel bad for acting like people dont matter to me. Constantly wondering if they struggle with the same feelings.

But watching the way its so easy for everyone who has discarded me to move along and forget, I know they dont struggle. I'm insignificant.

I understand part of it is projection. A deep childhood wound that has never quite healed. A yearning to be seen, and matter to someone that is mine, to be a priority in someones life. 

Unrealistic, I know. Blame it on the media consumption of my childhood. Where romance and love were sold to me as an adventure for two.

This year though...

It started with silence. Silence from someone who could not be clear on what their intentions were. Someone with whom I have, had, a very tumultuous relationship with. A string of emails had dwindled down to two word answers followed by months of silence. Broken only by a a rambling email that hinted at some email that was written but never sent. I dont think its a wild assumption that was a lie. 

All along I kept asking is this just a moment of release for them. A one and done. I got no clear answer and then things just died away. I struggled with the idea of responding. A past sitting between us wherein my concern and care were deemed controlling and needy. I was never sure where the line was. Every time I thought about reaching out I would wince inside. 

Eventually I adjusted to the silence again. Things now sit in limbo, or nowhere I'm never quite sure and I dont think a return to communication is planned. 

Interspersed with accusations of sabotage from one co-worker, too lazy to read emails and focused on being heard instead of listening, and another that took my drunken fawning over them to my friends as open mockery.

I was being told I had dark energy, a was never seen while being asked for assistance and chastised for not saying hello. 

I was hurt. Mostly because I thought bonds formed had meaning. Once again I was wrong. I once again assigned more value to a relationship than the other party. 

One of them remained as they have from the beginning, hot and cold. I should have known. Only acknowledging me when something was needed or when a specific party wasnt around. 

It felt all too familiar.

Add to that the complexities of being a lesbian and having a straight woman say you made her uncomfortable in any way.

Been there, done that. 

It feels like a lot of this past year was just reliving old cycles on a smaller scale. I don't like thinking I made anyone feel uncomfortable so I stay away. I also dont like receiving that messaging only to have them turn around and say things like "I miss this" while sitting there saying "we'll talk" and doing nothing to clear the air or repair the rift. As if I'm tasked with the responsibility or repair.

Been there.

Done that.

Funny it always seems to come from people who took time to make assumptions about me but never made time to get to know me.

The swift turn to immediately paint me as some malevolent character out to lead people to their own demise. Thats what really got me. I had suspicions on where the sabotage accusations had fermented. Having two seperate conversations warning people against speaking to me, alluding to the idea that I dont have their best interest at heart? That confirmed it. 

From two people that have kept information from  the team to purposely make others looks stupid.

Yet im the sabatour. I have dark negative energy but the staff is wary of you both.

Its like a siren song to my darkside.

Same play. New actors.

Same actors. New roles.

I want to let go.

I am so tired of feeling like I don't belong anywhere.

Laying in bed some nights I'm overcome by how much of my life has been colored by one heartbreak or another. 

Drifting back to the personal.

I still imagine you will read this and maybe this entry, this collection of words will be the one that finally flips the switch. But you would have to care.

We both know you don't. Well either you dont care you're a coward. 

Then it strikes me that the same applies for both. This is why it feels like a repeated cycle. 

Maybe my withdrawl from interactions, my speaking only when spoken to and keeping it brief and distant will signify to the universe I'm ready for a change. 

My moments of saying what I need to say and not following up to see if I've offended or if what Im saying has been received are over.

I'm not chasing care anymore. 

You don't? I don't.

You give me nothing? I give you nothing.

There is no point in wasting energy trying to keep someone around that treats you like an after thought and has no intention of staying.

Go.

I dont need the constant shifting energy.

2026 I am focusing on

Clarity, consistency and consideration.

If you cannot provide any one of these then move along.

walk

At some point, I will take a walk on these city streets.

As the sun sinks into the West and chill rises off the rivers that encased this little island.

As the winds whip down the canyons created by skyscrapers.

As the breath leaves my body and turns to steam that floats away on the crisp air.

As the holiday lights come to life and illuminate the hidden soft edges of this city. 

At some point I will take that walk and think of you while this song plays in my ears.

I will think of you and imagine what never was.

I will think of you, as I always have.

As I always do.

As I likely always will.

Curse of the unrequited.

At some point this walk will end.

As the moon rises into the sky.

As the city noises and crowds dwindle down.

I will inhale deeply, then I will exhale.

And my day will end.

Extended & Returned

Too much of my life had been spent having thing happen to me.

So much so that when I assert myself I become the villain.

I let too many people strip me of my autonomy. Letting them dictate how I should move,  how I should exist. 

Asking to be considered as a person with feelings and boundaries, expecting the effort made to communicate and repair to be returned.

And met with silence.

At first that silence was suffocating.  Squeezing all reason and calm from me.

Now, it familiar. Now it provides time for dissection and examination, and the light to see clearly.

Its not that I want too much.

Its not that I'm too emotional.

Its that I ask to be considered by people who have only ever seen me as a thing relative to themselves.

I do not exist beyond a means to an end or as an immediate thought. 

Once my purpose has been exhausted I am discarded and forgotten.

A horrible realization and feeling if you are not accustomed to it.

Those kinds of people you just have to simply place in box, as you found them, in a corner of your mind.

Out of sight.

Just as they do to you.

Returning the consideration extended.

Stream of thought

Would I even want to talk to anyone?

Is there anything to say?

I held so much inside for so long. I'm convinced it solidified and fell out my ass at some point.

The way I detach sometimes terrifies me. 

At the same time I used to believe that songs randomly shuffled were signs and not the result of finely tuned mathematical equations in the form of algorithms.

Everything means nothing.

Nothing means everything.

I grew up exposed to media that sold me "first love" stories, while watching the older kids snort coke and sell crack. 

So I clung to this romanticized version of relationships. I was 4 or 5 and watching Moonlighting, my mind just banking the images and feelings conveyed for future reference. Television was my comfort, my friend, my teacher. 

Not really a mystery why I did not handle rejection well. In my world things just didnt fall apart, people just didnt wake up one day and decided they didnt want you. 

In my world your first love was forever. Sure you had bad times, (who doesnt?) but you worked it out and built a future together and it all worked out.

I was not prepared for the reality of loving someone and being the last thing they thought about. I was not ready to go from being wanted to being seen as repulsive by someone I fell for.

Reality is cruel. 

Nothing prepares you for the way you lose pieces of yourself loving and yearning for someone that would rather die than touch you again.

I saw you the night before last

I saw you the night before last. You looked just as beautiful as the first time I saw you. The first time I really saw you. A few strands of white hair, a few fine lines, but still there.

You looked at me smiled and like everytime before, my breath caught im my throat and I had to remember to breathe.

Love is such a strange thing. Especially past loves. The feelings and memories they call forth are like an unexpected and unpredicted high tide. If you fight it, it will take you.

There you stood in my doorway, to home neither of us has been before. Anxiety rippled off of you. You stood hesistant to enter. Gaining control of my senses and fighting the urge to go to you. I smiled at you and carried on with whatever activity held my attention prior to your arrival.

I watched in my peripheral as the anxiety and tension that held you place melted away. I placed a baking tray into the oven and you rushed over to me. Your eyes wandering over me searching for something. 

You wrapped your arms around my neck, pulling me into a hug. I wrapped my arms around your waist. I returned the gesture while remaining slightly rigid against the softness and vulnerability of your embrace.

I knew better.

You started rambling off a litany of things while pulling away until we were face to face. I could see tears well in your eyes and that is when I knew.

This was a dream.

I locked eyes with you and smiled, telling you to slow down. I stepped back and busied myself at a sink. You stepped closer, continuing to ramble on but it was muffled and I couldn't make out what you were saying.

I stopped and looked at you again, making eye contact and said "you dont have to do anything right now".

I started to hear and see my friends in the next room. Laughing and carrying on. I felt as if I were missing out on something great.

You continued to talk but again it was muffled. I felt the panic, the anxiety coming off you in waves. I kept trying to calm you and soothe your worries. 

I was torn between between feeling like I was missing out and feeling like if I left you I would miss something.

Then it was over.

I woke.

No alarm.

No noise. 

Just darkness.

My thoughts. 

My thoughts of you.

Who we were.

What we were.

What we've become.

To ourselves.

To each other.

Just myself and these thoughts 530am.

I'm sure theres a message to be found in there. As sure as I am that this was a random occurrence. 

Meaningless

 It passes through my mind every so often. 

The day I didn't respond to a text after leaving my phone in my room. Coming back to it to find it filled with multiple messages saying you missed me, where was I, I better not be with some other girl. 

All of it, every last one, should have been a red flag. Sadly, as someone who often felt unseen, unheard, and unwanted, I registered it differently. 

To me, it was the first time anyone had ever expressed that they wanted me all to themselves. When you are starved for emotional care, it's easy to fall into that. I wasn't experienced or mature enough to recognize it was just a little game you played for attention. 

Still, that is the moment I think my heart uncapped. I had always been the afterthought, the "oh, I guess since no one else is around" person. I thought you were different. 

I thought you wanted me. I thought when you looked at me, you were getting as lost in my eyes as I was in yours. I thought when we kissed, you also felt like your heart was going to burst out of your chest. Like your heart was burning so badly for me that you could see the bright white heat of it when you closed your eyes. 

I thought you felt safe with me.

I thought I could be safe with you. I thought I could finally breathe. I thought I had found someone who wanted to keep me safe. 

I was wrong.

It was just a game. The same game you played a million times with the boyfriends you had before and after me. 

I'll pretend to care, and you do the same; whoever feels something real first loses.

You talked a lot and said nothing. I talked a lot and said everything.

Years later, we danced again.

You talked a lot and said nothing. 

This time, I read the room and left when I knew I wasn't wanted.

Almost half a year passed, and you tried again. What you were trying remains unclear, as it likely always will be. 

Clumsy ill timed half half-hearted attempts to reconnect. To a past you wanted to disappear and forget. To a person who never received consideration, whom you deemed "pathetic" and "weird". To a person you've only ever viewed as an extension of yourself. 

Pretending to make assumptions about my life, hoping I will divulge something beyond a social media post.

Pretending to care but never asking how I'm doing or how my life has been.

Making me a dumping ground for complaints on cell service, relationship epiphanies, and a loss of memories that you can dispute despite not remembering anything.            

Then I remember that I'm writing to the wind, and none of this will mean anything. Because nothing ever has.          

outsider

It wasnt supposed to be this way. Now.

I was supposed to be living in the suburbs or at least on the upper Westside in a 2 bedroom  apartment with my partner and our kids.

This week was supposed to be all about me stressing out about school supplies, snacks and "fits". Not me stressing out because im looking for two different pieces of outerwear.

I really did want that life. It just isn't the plan I suppose.

The shared nerves at having completed the first stage of our little humans journey and now having to send them off into the world with strangers.

Girls. I always pictured a little girl and another not to far behind her. I dont know why. Maybe it's my inner little girl trying to heal. 

Who knows.

I likely never will.

Not now a stones throw from 50. Old, broken and tired.

Too old to hold onto dreams of a distant past.

Too tired to pursue any chance left to make it come true.

I value my peace, and as such its harder and harder to let people in.

I have yet to meet anyone worth the effort. 

My friendships are stronger than ever. 

But romantic, deeply intimate connections worth growing are hard to come by.

It feels like I've watched the world grow more lustful and my dreams having an actual family to build and grow were cut out of the final picture.

At this point I've embraced childlessness. 

To be fair its probably best with the path this world is currently on.

These days its more about not having a person to share my thoughts, my wins and my losses with.

Again I have incredibly strong bonds with my friends, but there are days when I want to be prioritized.

Days where I want to be held quietly in bed while the rain patters against our windows. 

Kissed on my temple.

"I love you" and "its going to be okay" whispered in my ear.

A hand reaching out for mine in calm, for comfort and contact. 

An anchor point for me in this world.

Watching people struggle with one sided parenting while being unable to confide in the partner they chose is eye opening.

Often the happiness thats sold to the world is fleeting.

It makes me question why people make the choices they do.

A framing of thoughts that sets me apart from what ive always wanted and what has seemingly never wanted me.

pour

I was told today I deserve it. The career I have. 

I was told I deserve to be loved. I was told I deserve all the playlist in the world.

I was told this by someone that loves me. Someone that sat there with me at work while I quietly processed my father's death. 

Someone who sat with me in silence and did not leave me alone in it.

For the first time I am putting myself first. I have spent so much of my life giving and giving. 

Pouring from a cup that is a close to empty as you can get.

This week has revealed a lot about me to myself.

Years of hyper-responsivness seen as my work ethic. Doing everything to convince myself its not a trauma response thinking i have to give more and more of myself because that is my role.

I am the giver.

My time, my energy, my love, my support.

Given so that others can succeed, find happiness, chase their dreams. 

Everyone leaves and I stay.

I pour from my cup.

Whenever I have asked to have my cup filled...

Why?

What for?

Do you not have enough?

My immediate reaction is that I've committed an offense.

So I shrink into myself.

Double down on the people pleasing.

Continue to pour.

Even in the face of my cup cracking from the pressure I face internally and externally.

I pour.

Then having nothing left to give, facing mental ,physical and emotional exhaustion.

I stopped pouring.

I stopped pouring.

I feel guilt.

Sadness.

Mostly just tired.

44 years of pouring into others.

I think I deserve to be poured into now.

Lead

We found out there is lead paint in my grandmother's apartment. At first she was on board for the abatement. Then she backed out and canceled it.

She's now put herself at risk for fines or eviction. 

When I tell you I am tired. 

I no longer have fight left in me for anything.

I called her and asked her what she was doing, the then led to her standing ten toes down on she wasn't doing it.

Her health is already on the decline, she knows it. 

So she is now quick to say she has lived there since 1965, all her kids were raised there. She is not leaving.

I'm tired of fighting.

She sounds like shes tired of living. 

So here we are.

Her kids arent fighting her.

I'm tired.

I started thinking about how exhausting it must be to watch the world change so much.

To have feelings and no one to share them with for years.

She has never been the soft love grandmother.

There was always a biting edge to her love. 

Like papercuts.

Not enough to kill you but quick and sharp enough to sting and embed itself in your memories.

She's frail now.

Her brain is not as quick to follow the conversations or recall a thought.

Watching her fade brings to mind how I've framed death recently.

You have to be okay with letting them go.

Death is their spirit, soul whatever being freed to live the life they dreamed of. 

A life of no familial or societal expectations.

A chance to love themselves as much as they loved us.

And maybe, a chance to get it right.