I used to work for Hospice of the Valley, and a woman who had been a nurse and mentor to me when I was a CNA was admitted to the unit where I worked.  Shortly after I had to take a medical leave of absence, and this is from a sleepless night five years ago.

3:00 AM

If I was still working there now,
I would be cracking my last unopened chart
the one whose evening was noted in a dozen
red ink one liners

on the outlined nights report
and my eyes would struggle with the strong desire to close,
as I record the symptoms
and the remedies
Medicines results not real until a pen has set them onto paper.

But the work I do tonight is another kind of labour and so my eyes
fill wet and spill out erupting magma darkness
my mind instead of cotton
fills with syrup sad and anger sweet
and fears
and tears are the
red lines that will vomit into other black charting

map of this undiscovered place
a record on cyber journal page so I can digest
expose and maybe post
the darkest part of dawn.

I sit and taste the almost moonless night
so once life can cycle again into the light.

I am home here  at 3 AM,
my other home,
not the address you find centered on the pile of unpaid bills
but the couch where I have weathered a decade of my tears and fears
while the friend who stood beside me through it all
the marriages and lovers and not quite one night stands
and those others who I wisely did or did not give my heart; upstairs, with her husband sleeps.

I wander her halls
up to the bathroom,
back into bed
one drink of water
and then two
fighting the inevitable fall into my heart
from the safety of my head.

another drink of water
an email check
as inevitable as toddlers sleep
the feelings come
and I curl in the safety of someone else’s couch
and weep;
clutching yet another toy
the child inside will bring alive
deep beneath my smile and laugh I’ll dive.

but first just one more drink….
another bathroom trip.

In this place thats more than place

in this time thats more than time

Fear is first to walk along the path with me
She brings her sisters Loss and Greed
And hand in hand with little Ego they all stroll.

We wander into fancy

Grief deferred, All lace and rhyme, myth like skipping rhythm droll
past the mirror

the mirror in the bathroom downs the knight, bringing truth to bear on fancies flight

I am not six and safe from Death

It is questions, I think
That haunt me most in this post witching hour.
The Great Unknown.
Questions and a nagging ache that has no words.

I have seen eyes like this before, the ones the mirror makes me meet, my eyes are her eyes staring back.

“I’m not really angry,”
she said,
“Not even really sad.”
She thinks a minute
I wisely wait not filling up the space
but allowing the vacuum of the silence to suck from her things she cannot face.
“Its not like pain, your medicine took care of that.”
I notice I still hold the now empty 1 cc syringe in paper in my fingers
to soon from her first dose for chemical relief but I don’t tell her that.
The paper crinkles tighter in the other hand, the one not holding hers.
“And I’m not afraid,” she kind of chuckles and snorts and cries all in the same expulsion of breath,
we both pause all function, while she wipes the pieces of bodily reality from betraying flesh.
“OK, I AM afraid,” she almost yells
as if some inquisitor tore secrets from her absent breast,
“but not of dying,
of making a fool of myself,
of peeing my bed,”
her voice now just a whisper
“of all this, this ugliness.”
The room quiet except for the machine extracting oxygen from air to feed in concentrated form her tired lungs,
the tears start a silent river flood down that pragmatic nurses face,

“of seeing my husband so, so, so sad.”
sobs turn to something stronger,
” I’m not ready to die,”
she clutches my hand even tighter
body jerking with the movement of her mind
and I think of the four tiny fingers that two hours ago clutched tight to mine as I fed them their last bottle.

“That’s OK,”
I say, moving no closer,
not moving at all
a hug the surest way to scare away that wild burst of rankled grief
that unlanced will trouble every dying breath,
“Nobody is.”
A tiny part of me wants to meet her eyes and let her see
“I know!” it screams in mousy squeeks,
“Look at me, ” it wants to say in outside voice
“I know!”
but that’s a voice for therapy
Support group meetings
dogs and bears at 3 AM.
not patients,
for underneath
blue hot in the center of her life’s flickering flame
she is a nurse as well
and would find escape in comforting me.
This is her Rubicon,
not mine
and this woman that I midwife out of this mortal life

like me has held a hundred hands
and this moment is not
can not
be
about
me.
“Nobody is ready.” I murmur back.

Are these the right words
I never know
Right or wrong
what I say really doesn’t seem to matter.
Its not about me and
Its the telling that the woman needs the most
the saying,
so what I do is sit and listen.
“I feel so bad,”
she says as the boil on her feelings burst
“I hate that its all about me all the time
I grow uglier to myself daily
and he tells me I’m beautiful.”

“I’m not beautiful,”

The damn inside completley broken she reaches out to me
and I sit on the edge of the bed
and hold her rocking back and forth
as she shakes and weeps.
“I can’t tell them,” she says,
“I can’t tell him,
but… I’m….. so……… tired” she gasps and tries to fight again,
“I love him, but I’m so tired ” confessional thorn torn from her
She doesn’t win against her weather, but all storms spend themselves in time.
“It’s OK,” I murmur, “He knows you love him.
and we all get tired sometimes”
I rock her till she falls asleep
and lay her back on morphine’s pillowed lap.
The irony of phrasing is not lost on me,
I smile small as
I tuck a sheet here
adjust the light there
switch on the gentle lap of waves and native flute
and leave.

The years of weathered marriage reflecting another conversation
Her husbands sat rigid amidst the soft cushions
like he was ensconced in a hardback confessional chair
It was the first night of my week
the night of his wife’s admittance.
We did not hug,
he and me,

that may or may not have come later,
it always depends on how long it takes for nature to work its final task
but I thought then  “in time we will.”
That night he only looked at his hands,
“I can’t tell her,”
his voice broke as he fought for control and won, at least,
in this.
“I can’t tell her.”
He looked at me for forgiveness that he didn’t need.
“I love her so much, but I’m so tired.”
“Its Ok,” I said and touched ever so slightly his hands,
“Its OK to be tired, I can tell you love her.
We’re all tired sometimes”
He shook himself then
the emotions flying away like water off a retriever’s back
as he left his list of numbers and instructions and all business like and strong headed off to handle life’s overwhelming tasks.
I walk him to the door
both so silent,
he reaches
almost a hug;
the leaning in the most he yet could risk,
“I know you’ll take good care of her,
she’s everything to me.”

His voice a challenge, an order,
not plea,
not yet a trusting request.
He tucked a shirt tail here
Smoothed greying hair there
and left.

She cried as described

day two of that four day week

and died on my days off
that doorway the closest he and I would get to hugging.

My charting said first night
“Support and education provided to spouse.”
and I checked the box “Grieving appropriate”
or however that paper I filled out a hundred hundred’s time
diminishes the hurricane to pencil marks and numbers.
The second night same phrase of sorts,
“Education and support provided to patient,”
followed by my ten favorite words,
“Patient sleeping. No S/S of pain, nausea or respiratory distress”

Three AM darkness
has faded into 5 AM dawn. I will not return to that work again, except perhaps myself as patient.

If I was at work
I would be coming back awake with the rush of deskless shift end tasks.

But I am home
here at my friends
and dawn has come
and I know

That soon I too will sleep.

CC

Suzanne Takes You Down

Like the thorny wall around Rapunzel

Keeping prince and love at bay,

I’m surrounded by my anger at the ones who won’t be saved;

Excusing and abusing

With lies and pills and bruises

And their promises of change

Which are as empty as the bottles and the cans they gather; hide.

But it’s my guilt that I’m left living,

not  these memories of deception

That  keeps me now, inside.

The door, if found, acceptance

that again,  when I would have saved you,

Instead, I have survived.

This poem is primarily to my sister, but it also includes all the others in my life who cheated themselves out of happiness through addiction/alcoholism, rejected and hurt those who truly loved them while embracing abusive relationships and then died either at their own hand or from their addictions. Unfortunately in my family and friends there are too many, and a few still trying.

When Helen Came to Troy

Cassandra how did you greet the agent of happiness’ destruction
The match to light the kindling layed by greed and pride
Knowing as you saw her enter in your cities wall
That all you loved and valued would exit with her tide
Did you offer drink and comfort; with proper manner welcome in
Tortured by your gifted prescience, knowing too, they thought you lied,
Why did you never learn to hold your tongue or when to close your eyes.

CC

Everything Costs Something

“Everything costs something,”  the old woman said, shook her head

And pulled her hand away from the brand new hat and gloves I proffered.

“ I have more at home,”  I tried to make her understand.

“A gift,” I said “I just thought that you look cold.”

I hadn’t much then myself, but Utah winter had bit her till she bled in spots

And I had the old ones, still no holes at all, at my journey’s end.

“They’re free.” I pushed them towards her, once again.

“Everything costs something,” she repeated, more forceful this time

And rustled in her pile of shopping cart treasures .

We settled on a battered dictionary whose brittle, yellow pages

I still sometimes slowly turn

Searching for the meanings of some forgotten word.

“Everything costs something’”

No equivocation here,

Sitting as I do now,

Old as she was then

poised between  my  unwashed dishes

and the story filled pages of one more ending day.

I watch  last week’s dust bunnies be chased by today’s tufts of  golden retriever hair,

And  balance my bank account.

I Weigh the Time and money spent here

Against dreams I cherished there, and search the numbers

Each subtraction at a time

hoping to find myself again

Somewhere

On the balance line.

CC

Suzanne Takes You Down

Like the thorny wall around Rapunzel

Keeping prince and love at bay,

I’m surrounded by my anger at the ones who won’t be saved

Excusing and abusing

With lies and pills and bruises

And their promises of change

Which are as empty as the bottles and the cans they gather; hide.

But it’s my guilt that I’m left living that keeps me now inside

The door, if found, acceptance that again when I would have saved you,

Instead, I have survived.

This poem is primarily to my sister, but it also includes all the others in my life who cheated themselves out of happiness through addiction/alcoholism, rejected and hurt those who truly loved them while embracing abusive relationships and then died either at their own hand or from their addictions. Unfortunately in my family and friends there are too many, and a few still trying.

This repost is directly in response to a thread on the Mythic Cafe. And a personal favorite because it reminds me of when the relationship I had with my favorite sister began to heal; a relationship that has come miles from that writing. Not that either of us have changed much, we just stopped being afraid and started listening.

Speaking Rock 

“Do you remember,” she said
as her arm about to launch yet another loose pebble missile
at some poor unsuspecting scrub pine
was stayed by her lost reverie
retrieved;
and the army of hair on my own arm paused at attention in the warm Sonoran wind.

This trip was my idea.
A chance for sisters lost to each other in all but fact
to find a place where more than genes connected us
But it was all I had done that day,
remembered.
Like a second generation survivor of a homeland war
picking daisies in a field
never knowing if the next step,

the final flower in my fists of sunny reminiscence
would blast a leg or arm or life away.

“Where have all the graveyards gone ?
gone to flowers everyone
when will they ever learn
when will they…. ” I sing in my head.

Sometimes I think I am the only one who remembers.

“Do you remenber how weird you were when you were little?
always seeing things that were not there…”

I remember
that you were the most beautiful creature in the world
and so old and wise, two years my senior
omniscient in your understanding of our parents world
and prone to loathe the intrusions of this smaller sibling
with her stories of the faerykin;
Crazy Claudia Klutz was one of your kinder names.

I also remember
hiding hours in the dark behind the laundry
beneath the bed
whispering secret stories to you so you wouldn’t scream,
wouldn’t give away our refuge to the realtime demon Dad;
I remember singing spur of the moment lullabies
Till you would fall sleep,
your perfect golden curls in my lap.
And the next day at school you would pretend
that you didn’t even know me.
Yes, I remember.

“Do you remember the fight about the rocks,
you said that just because I couldn’t speak their language
didn’t mean they couldn’t talk.”
She laughs.
I sit taller, not speaking, eyes ahead.

Is that the old derision that I hear?
I wonder again why I did this to myself;
Planned this trip,
Brought her here,
Here where the rocks spoke solace to the deepest wounds I bore.
Why have I chosen to bare my tender  sensibilities to
Her rigid Christian credo and her steel sharp sword of reason?

“Not here, not now, Goddess, I beg you…
please don’t let her break the magic of this place..”
but I speak only in my head,
my eyes turn slowly towards my tormentor
shallow breath my only concession to presence.

“Do you remember
how you said everything had spirit?
Everything!
And I couldn’t hear your rocks
only because
I wouldn’t listen.”

She turns her face to me
a tear clearing the tiny trenches half a century can make upon a face
wets the granite offering
cradled in her hand.

“You have no idea what your crazy stories meant to me,”
Shy she dropped her eyes and stared at the stone in her hand
transformed to art from weapon
held it for a moment to her ear,
seeking some rumble of distant glacial source,
like the conch shells in my desert home remember ocean;

“I’m listening now,” she said and smiled.

And
In this
place of healing
finally
so was I.

Running Barefoot

When I was a child
I got exactly two pairs of shoes a year
In September I was fit sturdy second-hand leather oxfords
to keep my feet and stride
contained appropriately
within the patterns that pomp and poverty’s circumstance proscribed;
School shoes.

And gladly every spring
I shed them, forever forgotten,
for a new pair of canvas running shoes.   Like Bradbury’s protaganist
I could jump higher
run faster
laugh longer
on the wings of  my new spring shoes.

I remember when you were my new spring shoes
and your kisses freed me from all the leather restraints of being
anything
other than just me
and together we ran faster
and jumped higher
and loved betterUntil we wore each other like a favorite pair
each stain and fray adding to the story and the charm
And love and life were nothing we could ever throw away.

But the soles of summer shoes aren’t meant to last
And the silver wheel turns
And the days grow chill
And Mother mortality crept in while we slept.
In winter cold I lay alone, bereft, I wept.

So many shoes since then.
I see them on the store shelf, attractive to the eye,
Glossy, glittery, strappy pumps with stylish designer names
Boots of softest calf
Rocket science running shoes
Lightweight professional slip-ons
Calling out to me to try them, buy them
Commit.

And sometimes they almost fit
and sometimes I do buy them
and I married again after you died
and my toes turn inward with the years of leather shaping

but my happiest times for heart and feet

are still running barefoot throught the grass
remembering that summer with you.

CC