Love is

Love is watching from afar
letting him struggle
because he has to learn himself

Love is taking the 3 a.m.
call because his
anxiety is spinning out and

dark thoughts are creeping in
Love is always
knowing that you'll pick up

the phone and never expecting
a thank you
because it will never come

And being OK with that

--
April PAD - Poetic Asides Day 21: love or anti-love

Bottled spirits

They say he
had his demons
I saw them
on his face

anguished, angry, ashamed
they feasted on
the memories he
could not share

there could be
no exorcism for
the pains he
would not speak

only the spirits
he drank released
them temporarily until
they became our demons too

--
April PAD - Poetic Asides Day 12: spirit

Black holes

I saw this hauntingly beautiful piece at the Portland Art Museum today and was absolutely struck by it; the hair, the ears, the neck, the shoulders look just like my son ... and the anguish just moved me nearly to tears. It's like someone took a psychic x-ray or the human I love most in the world and this is what they saw. Heartbreaking.

So, of course, I wrote about it ...


sometimes
I see death
when I look
into my son's face

there's
an anguish that
could kill him
clawing just below the

surface
of his skin
a zombie eating
his brain from inside

sometimes
i see the
look of anguish
as he claws at

life
begging to be
freed from the
killer inside, the black

hole
in his throat
that's so big
it chokes out life

---
April PAD Day 6 - ekphrastic

DevaSTATE

His was a madness that
whispered in his ear,
soft and sweet
dream-like

a gossamer that tickled his
hair and sometimes itched,
that made him
scratch

at skin that he could
not feel beneath the
thin blanket of
spiderwebs

as he plummeted deeper into
a world the rest
of us couldn't
see


--
Three Word Wednesday - devastate, gossamer, plummet

Beyond the horizon

I waited as you wandered
through the confusion
to an oasis of calm

You dipped your hands into
a river of
my tears, cooled your head

and wet your throat with
the sadness of
the dark desert between us

April PAD Day 20 - beyond