the longest goodbye - a shit haiku called "ereyesterday" which is an actual word

a three year plan is

bullshit when you're ready to go

the day before yesterday

it's goddamn fucking cold today in Texas

 there’s an ache

where my spine hits my skull

but just to the left

a throbbing up a tenseness down

into my shoulder my arm

along my torso it falls flitters

loose loosely away and back again

grasping thrashing

reattaching it coils

around my belly my chi

 

it’s the years months days hours

the milliseconds accumulated

piling pushing forward and through

 

always

forward

always through

exhaustion

 

where whence how

why

does the soul manifest in the flesh

I’m not living for you

In January ‘20, I approached turning 50 with such joy and hope. 

Knee deep in my doctorate I had a plan. It was a good plan, but the world went sideways while I stood motionless then sprinted into the madness. The last two years I’ve worked, overworked, gave too much of myself to keep others sane, while my own sanity dwindled. They bawled and demanded, and sucked the joy out of my days until the rot spread to my nights. 

I’yet to mourn what could have been, that dream I dreamt for so long, my doctorate and what would come after

I’ll still struggle to find stillness for a while, walk through the days too fast, erring too often. In the coming year, though, I hope to slow my mind and approach each day with intentionality, approach each interaction with care.

I hope to return to that girl who drew and wrote and loved wildly. 

she

if a heart could break

vaingloriously

her decline would be the attempt

 

instead I will walkabout

doing the day

with precision and care

only weeping

in the white space; in the air between

moments and breaths 

in dark corners

soon she goes

in the quiet

there is a chill

an exhaustive pulsing

near indiscernible 

felt distinctly

 

my heart

my breath

 

and in the other room she lay

wasting

Chelsea didn't eat today...

She stands

back arched, back legs

shaking 

from the weight of years

refusing food she

walksabout

front room to kitchen 

and there and back again for

sips of water, constantly

looking, searching, constantly

milling about, until

She lurches into 

a laying

inelegant, deeply 

emphatic

a tiny frame thrown into loud thud

 

“I don’t wanna need your love” ~ Stronger by Sorry Girls