My friend Miss. L and I are affectionate in a very strange way.  We like to call each other names.  We try to outdo each other and typically whoever remembers to get to “skank” first, wins.

I upped the ante a bit by pulling out my book, The Gilded Tongue.

This is how our FB message exchange went:

L:  I enjoyed working with you today…bitch.
H: You too, skank.

I went for it right away, to keep things short and sweet and of course TO WIN.  But Miss. L had other ideas.  It went on between us:  whore, slut, harlot, strumpet, trollop — until finally I admitted to showing off and used a word I didn’t even know and had yanked from my book:  dratchell.  Her simple reply was:  bitch.  To which Will and I laughed most heartily.

If you are one of those feminists who thinks it is always wrong to call another woman a bitch or whore, then this blog isn’t for you.  Just so ya know.  Context is everything people!

I digress…

When I read the two words in The Gilded Tongue that mean “slut” I read them out to Will who then said, “That sounds like a law firm.”

Then we decided it would be hilarious if one were to slip in (ah-hem) the law firm name Dratchell & Franion as part of a skit or something.

We then authored a brief scene where a sexy super-tailored lawyer-type woman (think: Lilith Crane in a tight black suit) walks in:

Haughtily she says, “I represent Dratchell & Franion.  My client is seeking a writ of habeas corpus.  We want to voir dire your witness.”

ASIDE:

I will also have you know that Will knew, and all to quickly for my taste, the proper word for this definition:

“Sexual gratification from rubbing one’s body against others.”

He claimed he hadn’t thought of the word in decades and that it was cool to talk about that kind of stuff openly in the 1970s.  Therefore, it was natural that he would remember such a word.  Uh huh.

I had one dream recently where I slept with the husband of a friend I really like.  The dream was only briefly about sex, then the rest of the dream was about regret.  Regret I had made a secret between two people I cared about.  And their family split up because of the trust I broke between them – which made me feel horrible too, because I really like their children and I think they are a wonderful family. At the end of the dream my daughters both decided they didn’t want me to be in their lives anymore.

Most of the nightmares involve Will and my daughters.  Will leaving me.  Me being upset at Will in ways I never have been before and yelling at him, which I rarely do.  Will hiding from me and moving away and pretending like he doesn’t know me and telling people not to let me know where he is.

Then there are the Jade and Amber dreams.  Most of which involve them being in some kind of peril – either apart or together and I am unable to help them.  I’m often so incompetent that I fall asleep and forget to pick them up wherever they are, then can’t even phone, or phones don’t work.  My voice doesn’t work.  My car dies.  I forget how to call 911 or there is static on the phone or I forget who to call.  I dream I am too busy and tired to care properly for my children.  Which may sound like not such a big deal, but to me it feels desperate and real when it is happening in the dream, as though it were life and death and I am letting them down in a way that they could never recover from.  And everything I try to do is ineffective. The worst ones are when something final and deadly happens – like one of them slipping into a giant quarry-size pit of clay-like quicksand and having no way of getting them out – knowing they will die and it will take minutes (an eternity) for it to happen and they are suffering and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it, other than jump in and die with them.

This morning my dream was not deadly so much as it was constantly blocking me from helping my daughter.  Jade was a baby (they are often younger in my dreams then they are now) and she had had a fever.  She wanted to call Robert to tell him she wasn’t feeling well.  We were snuggling on the bed and she was old enough to talk, but not yet a toddler.  I tried phoning Robert several times, but the phone kept acting weird.  He could hear me for a moment, then it would make noises and disconnect me.  Finally he was getting mad because I tried to call several times and I said, “JUST CALL ME BACK!”  Since I assumed it was my dialing or something I was doing that was wrong.  But he was irritated with me so he didn’t call back.  I was so upset because Jade wanted to talk to him and he wasn’t going to call back.  Then I fell asleep because I was so tired from working so much and woke up and realized I slept past time to wait for her at the bus stop.  I asked Will where she was and he said she didn’t get off of the bus.  But that the daycare tried to call about five times.  I started crying and yelling at him and asking him why he didn’t wake me up and why that didn’t seem important to him.  Every time I tried to call the daycare, the phone wouldn’t work.  Will was trying to wake me and eventually I roused, but started crying and just felt like a horrible mother for being busy and tired.

Sometimes I realize how much of my time is spent worrying or hurting or feeling like I am not a good enough woman, wife, mother, money-maker, house-cleaner, friend, daughter, grand-daughter.  I don’t call my mom enough.  I don’t write my grandmother often enough.  I get stressed about Facebook birthday notifications because I want to get everybody a card and a present, but am thankful for them at the same time, so I don’t have to try and remember everybody’s birthday.  My once perfect connection with Will was damaged and now I feel like I’ll never be good enough again.  My daughters are grown and it’s a good thing because I’m too busy to be a good mom to them.  And I am moving – which is good, in itself for so many reasons I can’t get into – but it’s also stressful going from:

1400 sq. ft. with dishwasher, washer and dryer and detached garage/studio

to less than 600 sq. ft.  no washer/dryer or dishwasher and one small (I mean small) closet for both of our clothes

And…no real security.  The divorce paperwork has been coming in and I have to digest it in small amounts.  It’s overwhelming.  And depressing.  And makes me feel worthless.

I guess I’m done with this cheery little post.

Things aren’t totally bleak.  I am about to have what I hope will be a very good and helpful weekend of healing and evolution.  Wish me luck.

A quick blog just letting folks know that more and more yoni pieces will be available at my Art Fire store as I get them done.

Mostly they will be done in ACEO format, but I will take commissions for larger yonis as well.

If you are goddessy, or earthy you should have one of my very lovely yoni paintings.  Some of them resemble flowers and others resemble flowing sea creatures.  They have a good energy.

Until just a couple of years ago I always was very optimistic about relationships.  I felt if two people met and liked each other, it pretty much would always be easy to be friendly and nice to each other.  Even if you hit a rough patch, it would be ok and you could work it out.

I’ve have finally learned the lesson not to let people in too closely.  That I was being too optimistic and overestimating my own ability to live up to the expectations of some of the people who knew and even liked me.

Many people know a lot about me, because of my blogging and artwork.  But not too many people have been invited in intimately.

When I start opening up and making myself vulnerable, my weaknesses show.  As soon as somebody is getting in close I get both flooded with excited energy and terrified at potentially embarrassing myself.  Sometimes I choke and say the wrong thing – sounding stupid or insulting a person by accident just by being clumsy with words.  I think it’s too hard anymore for me to be brave enough to risk the hurt of being vulnerable with somebody new.  I don’t want to say the wrong things and hurt anybody.

I think it’s pretty normal, but I don’t want people to see me in a bad light. I don’t ever want to be fake, but I want to try and put my good energy forward whenever I can.   I try and stay in the good light for most people – lift them up, give them praise, be strong, be confident and reassuring.  I swear, it’s as much for them as it is for me.  But for the folks who have seen me in bad lighting (and let me see them in a vulnerable and flawed state – for we are all flawed) – those who have stayed, you are precious to me and I love you.  Those who have left me behind, I understand why and I forgive you for not forgiving me for not being what you thought.

The nice part about that is, you can get an original work of art for very little kizash.

I struggled a bit with the decision about what to name the shop.  Everything I own is under “Heather Bartlett.”  I already realize when I do get divorced, then married, I will have to decide what to do with my business name.

I expect to be divorced at least next year some time, so I felt it better to just go ahead and make the Art Fire store “Heather Hardy Art.”  So, if I start easing folks into it now, maybe by the time I actually get divorced then married again (let me never have to write THAT sentence again) most of my Heather Bartlett stuff will be recognizable as Heather Hardy stuff.

http://www.artfire.com/ext/shop/studio/HeatherHardyArt

Pretty disjointed and very un-edited.  Just kind of too exhausted to care enough to do more than warn you.

MOM to GODDESS RISING then FALLING then RISING AGAIN

I began my art career by simply coming out of my protective shell.  I was a bit of a hermit.  I threw all of my focus into being a mom.  Watching Disney movies and coloring in coloring books, doing home crafts and playing jump-rope.  I loved being a mom to my little ones.  I marveled at their interactions.  Their hair as it bounced when they ran.  The way they would see something amazing in the most ordinary of things.  I would be supportive of most things they wanted to do and helped them to the best of my abilities.  I got better at being a mom as time went by, but at some point that was all I was being – a mom.

Marveling and fussing over your children is not really a full life for me.  Even being a great mom is not a full life for me.  And I do think I’m a pretty great mom – though some think me a little too clingy.  So I try to be a little less clingy and take advice from moms who I think manage that pretty well.  Being a supportive and always available mom helps them, but it doesn’t always inspire personal growth in things that are non-mom related.  And we all have to keep growing, or when the kids grow up and don’t need us anymore: CRISIS.   Of the identity sort.  Who am I?  What is my purpose?  Poor me – my babies don’t need me – nobody needs me, why am I even here?  There is *nothing* wrong with wanting to be needed.  I think that it goes to that little seed I believe we all have and all feel:  We all need to matter.  That is my theory of everything.  However we can meet the need of “I need to matter” — we will march forth and do in an effort to feel as though we matter.  Or in the case of something gone by – mattered.

I have had the deepest emotional wounds in my life from feeling like I was nothing.  Like I didn’t matter or make a difference.  That I am replaceable and unimportant.

I believe many crimes of passion, cracked personalities and neurotic tendencies are rooted in the need to matter.

My way of dealing with my need to matter, I suppose, was and is to reach out to people.  To share my feelings.  To seek validation.  To tell my stories and see who calls back to me with their pain and needs.  Then to have dialogue with them.  This is how I began my art career.  By calling out to women who were plus size.  Then to women who had self esteem issues or eating disorders.  Then as I grew as a person and an artist (and as a mother of two daughters) I began caring about all of the struggles women face.  At times I have been a ranting and screaming feminist.  At other times I have tried to take a more Zen approach.  In the end I have found the best way to be a feminist and an artist and a mom is to try to be the best ME I can be.  To try and call out hypocrisy in advertising and media.  To at least highlight powerful ideas that give women strength.  To hold hands with all of my sisters and do something beautiful for them and with them.  And in making them feel beautiful and powerful, I do the same for myself…and hopefully for my daughters.

I realized how much I had instilled this in them when my marriage was falling apart.  Due to the manner in which I was replaced I felt like something must be wrong with me.  A dangerous road to go down.  And I went out and bought $200 worth of new make-up and skin creams.  Then I started talking about things like face lifts and clothing not looking good on me.  I was so distraught by feeling like I didn’t matter that it caused a crumbling at the foundation I had been building for about ten years.  My daughters couldn’t believe what they were hearing.  And when I saw the looks on their faces, I felt ashamed for doubting myself.  But still, the self hatred continued for a while – I just kept it more to myself.  I felt like I had been a doll on the shelf who was dusty, faded and ugly and he picked me up and tossed me into the corner – my face and chest and heart cracking into a thousand tiny pieces.  He took a new doll and put her on the shelf.  Now she was the favorite.  And I was nothing.  I realize that this is not a very grown-up way to handle the situation.  So dramatic Heather!  Don’t be a drama queen!  I knew that these feelings needed to be worked on.  Which is why I sought therapy.  And which is why I paid close attention to what my thoughts were and journaled them.  I had thought I had all of these self esteem issues licked!  I was a GODDESS DAMMIT!  I am beautiful and powerful and strong!!!  But, well…the esteem issues  were still in there.  Asleep.  They felt gone, but they were asleep.  And apparently at least a good bit of my self esteem was based on things like what my partner thought of the way I looked.  Can anybody out there honestly say that they do NOT care if their partner finds them sexy?  I am very curious about this concept.  Is there any woman or man out there who is truly, madly, deeply in love with their partner and would not care if their partner found them unattractive, physically?

In any case, I had to get over myself.  I had to accept that I was not attractive to him.  I had to accept he found somebody else more desirable to him.  And I had to find a way to do so that allowed for me to still grow – and I thought I had.

One thing though, I had sort of a safety net that many women going through a separation – who have been left by their partner for another woman – do not have.  I had Will.  And his support and dedication, passion, desire and promises helped me through the worst of all of it. My foundation of trust with him was unshakeable.  Eventually I got over the hurt of what had happened between my husband and me and I felt better.  My heart had healed.  It was worse for wear, but the scars were pliable enough and it was beating hard and happy for a while.  We were in a state of grace.  Then one day, not so long ago and purely by accident I realized that my heart could be destroyed if Will were to think less of me than the very happy best he always had.  If for some reason he didn’t think I was the smartest, prettiest, most desirable girl – if something were to change his mind about that – then that would shake me to my core and make me feel worthless and long to be something else.  Somebody else.  What is a girl to do?  This realization made me spin into another crisis.  SHIT!  I AM NOT a whole person – my own person.  A person who can stand up all by herself and say, “I ROCK!” I apparently need to say, “I ROCK!”  and have other people agree with me that I rock – at least a few, anyway.  Or at least my lovers.  I let my lovers determine my worth to a dangerous degree.  Why must I face this question over and over about my intelligence, beauty and power and worth?  Is it because I need to be able to walk away from any man and feel confident and strong and not need him?  Is it because I am supposed to realize that at any time another woman could become a favorite of a lover of mine and I would be the old doll again and that is just reality?  Am I supposed to have MORE faith in men or LESS faith in men based on these things?  Or in lovers?  Or in myself?

I am not even sure if I had a female lover that this dynamic would be different.  I greatly value what my partners think of me.  To the point that if their opinion of me does not place me in the throne of chosen favorite Queen Goddess – then I may have a crisis of self worth.  Is that normal?  Is that healthy?  What do you think?

I go around the house muttering to myself questions about whether or not I am worth much.  Whether or not I MATTER.  And I get feedback that, YES Heather, you DO matter.  Then why must this question and this change and this tilt of my planet be happening and why did it have to change my ecosystem that I thought I had carefully tended to?  And even if no answers came – can I answer to myself, “YES HEATHER – YOU MATTER!”  And does answering yourself mean that you are crazy or smart?

Sometimes the power of other women who are supportive has helped me bridge many gaps in my flawed little landscape.  Is a crack in the landscape a flaw?  I don’t know – maybe it’s just made that way?  It’s just a canyon or a stream or a river and not a flaw, but something to explore and value as beautiful in its own way.  Is that an illusion?  Am I trying to talk myself into the ideas that my flaws are beautiful or if I believe they are, then they are.  That’s what I have always said.  Because who really gets to decide if we are beautiful souls?  Who gets to come up with that definition?  We do.  We all do.  Collectively and separately, right?  So what is the consensus when you talk to and look at yourself?  How about me?  And if you think I suck, does that mean I suck?  Or does it just mean you can’t see my beauty?  So many different ways to look at it.

During this time of crisis and realization, I decided I wanted a tattoo or to pierce something or to color my hair a drastic color. Last time I was having a crisis I should have just stuck to the hair stripes.  I did do those – but thought of them AFTER the tattoo.  Unfortunately I should have followed my friend Jackie G’s advice:  NO NAMES!  This was a recent Sharpie change to my tattoo I had put on my shoulder when the crisis with my husband first began.  I did it out of a show of dedication, but maybe that was silly.  Who gets a tattoo when trouble starts?  You get a tattoo when things are going WELL!  What do I know?  I should have thought of crazy hair first.

My oldest is in town now and I asked her about my hair.  “Pink, maybe…” I said to her.  She said, “You look good with red.  You should do a nice regular red.”  I said, “No.  I can’t dye my hair red right now.  Well, maybe that super bright red. Or….PINK!”

Then she said,  “Mom, you can’t dye your hair those crazy colors.  You’re too old for that.”

I paused.  Gave her a look of disbelief.  It felt like the time Jade told me I couldn’t put two little  twists on the side of my head because I was too old for it.  It felt like a stab.  I knew she didn’t MEAN to.  But it did.  And she saw the look on my face and said, “Mom, lots of people are too old for that – I think anybody over 25 is too old for that.  Don’t take it wrong.  It just looks like you’re maybe trying too hard.”

“But, I’m an artist, ” I said.

She sighed.  I went to my room and lay on the like a fifteen-year-old and quietly sobbed.  She asked me why I was crying.  I said, “I don’t want to be too old for bright hair!  I feel so old today!  You don’t know how damned old I feel!  I didn’t do these things when I was young and now it’s too late, I’m too old!”

Shit, I’m welling up just writing about that silly scene.  She conceded to dye it pink and bright. And I’ve gotten many compliments.  I think because I love it and it makes me feel fun and that comes across.  So, for this month, while my hair is pink and bright red I reclaimed a little of my star-spangled-goddessyness.  Now I need to work on that feeling of moonbeams shooting out of every pore.  That one is a lot harder to achieve.

TECH GIRL

For you younger folk – back in the early days of computers we had “bulletin boards” and “usenet groups” — of which I belonged to several.  This was before webpages.   It was in these groups I discovered that there were not only women who were plus size and perfectly happy with who they were, but there were men who actually liked plus size women – PREFERRED them.  I thought of this a few months ago when a young woman who was then a friend of mine, was over at my home. We were cooking and talking about Freddie Mercury and she made a comment.  It was one of those moments when I wished I had a recorder or had written down the exact phrasing – but she said something like, “I take great delight in the fact that one of the most amazing rockers of all time, when he liked women, liked them plump.”   She may have said fat or extra-curvy – but I thought this was quite a revelation and it made me laugh out loud and grin for many moments that followed, whenever I thought of it – and still makes me grin now.

In those early days of usenet groups I connected with people who would have a great impact on my path to self discovery and my future as an artist.  And Goddess – for however long she reigned.

After the usenet groups phased out due to the growing popularity of webpages I then, with Robert’s help, created a “Homepage” – which was pretty much a blog, but you had to hard code it or use a web editor – at the time the popular one was Frontpage.  We ended up with Dreamweaver eventually, which had better, more customized results.

I found this description of my old homepage, called “Mythical Realities” – so named after a poem Robert had written in high school – which is probably from around 1998:

Mythical Realities by artist Heather Bartlett: her hobbies & interests, photos, personal& celeb, links, artwork, poetry, vegetarian, women’s’ issues and plus size stuff.

And perhaps you don’t know this, but “links” used to be a big deal.  Links were highly sought after before the invention of Google.  If you had a topic you were interested in, say BBW artwork or plus size clothing or Female Genital Mutilation awareness – if you had links and you shared them, people were grateful and visited your page.

I found these graphics on the internet – they are from back then when I had invented a “Goddesses of the Web Award.”  This was an award I went around and gave to websites I thought had a positive message for women.  Or services I thought benefited women.  I had given out a few hundred of these to folks who enjoyed them and proudly displayed them on their websites.  I also had made “Goddesses of the Web Webring” — a webring was a way of connecting in a big loop a bunch of related topic websites.  Again, pre-Google, these things were important for navigating the WWW.  The graphics look so amateur and clunky to me now.  But at the time people thought they were pretty great.  Back then I had Paint Shop Pro and was a long way from ever using Photoshop.

This entry is so disjointed.  And I’m to emotionally exhausted to go back and edit it.  Normally I let it rest then go back and put paragraphs with like paragraphs and edit out a bunch of stuff that doesn’t need to be in there and find all the things I repeated.  I often say the same thing in different ways.  I don’t know for sure why I do that, but I think it’s a way of making something more real or maybe I am afraid I will be misunderstood.  If I say it two different or three different ways, then surely I won’t be misunderstood, right?  Well…that’s the hope anyway.

The point of me telling you all of that, was to tell you this:  I started my road to being happier with me by reaching out to others, through bellydancing class, through usenet groups, through my homepage and eventually my blogs and artwork.  Sometimes I get so hurt by being open and vulnerable – well by being that way with a person and they misunderstand me or change to disliking me or deciding I don’t matter much – and that hurts like hell.  So then I want to SNAP SHUT and become a hermit and hide under my covers forever.  Then, after some time, I get indignant and feel like just because that person thinks that – no matter how cool and awesome I thought they were – that it doesn’t mean they are right about me.  And if they think something unsavory about me, that doesn’t make it so.  And so I feel like I need to just open back up and be ME.  Open and sharing and maybe sharing too much – but some of the most wonderful people in my life have come by me because of that.  Should I risk missing out on that?  Or should I risk the hurt?  My poor heart is pretty scarred and battered.  So, right now I’m just asking the questions – I’m not sure I have all the answers.  But I do have some tools to help me get to them.  I hope.

In the apartment in Greenbelt, November 2002. Good shot of his hand. This is one of the earliest examples of my photography.

There are piles of dead tree pulp that are artifacts from my courtship with Will. Some writings authored by me and others, by him. Many of the writings have been either private, between he and I or done in the form of poems and journal entries or emails.  He has even painstakingly taken to recording my texts at times.  In the past I did not publicly post my outpourings to Will very often out of respect to Robert.  I didn’t like the idea of potential hurt feelings. I was already dealing with crushing amounts of guilt from what I did share and share…and share – my thoughts, my words, my body – everything was divided.  Those feelings and worries, those are all old post material, though.  The level of torn feelings and bonding loyalties that seemed in conflict were more than I can describe.  They are in most of my writings of that time period, somewhere in there, even if only in tiny glimpses. Whatever anybody may think of me, my heart is often trying to find truth and light.  And sharing my feelings to the extent that I do – or that I desire to – with a lover has only ever been fully absorbed, embraced and understood by Will.  And even though this post is old writing, it’s a new post since it is the first time I have shared a writing that is as personal and private to me as this is.

Sometimes, after five years or so, you can forget the beauty, power and all the firing synapses  of early courtship.  Well, maybe not forget, exactly.  Sometimes the beauty of it fades a bit and like all things that are aging, it requires a little bit of care and polishing.  This time, in the form of remembrance.  Rosemary…that’s for remembrance.  And this is a simple observational writing I penned while watching Will take a shower in the Greenbelt apartment.

In the book, Teachings on Love by Thich Nhat Hanh there is a chapter about “True Love.”  In Vietnamese tradition there are two words for love: tinh and nghia.  Tinh is what people have when they start out in love most often – passion.  Lots of it.  Nghia is a more abiding and calm love where faith, trust and understanding come in.  Tinh, as I understand it, can always be present in some amount and is more prevalent at the beginning of courtship, but nghia must be built over time.  Nghia comes with shared history, sorrow and beauty.   If there is anybody who is well read on this subject, please send me a note, I would love to hear your perspective.

The photo above was taken almost exactly four months into our courtship – November 2002.  An early example of my photography.  Though my skills in that arena have improved, I am not ashamed of the technical flaws I see in this image because the beauty of the moment, for me, is too precious to have anything but warm and loving thoughts of it.

I have long been fascinated with hands.  The tasks they carry out.  The tender healing they can help perform.  The cooking, cleaning and caressing.  If our hands could talk, I wonder what they’d say.

Even now – over eight years later – I can easily conjure the sense memory of these moments.  I remember Will standing naked in his living room and tilting a little envelope full of ebay-acquired tiny colorful vintage Cracker Jack toys into the palm of his hand.  I recall the way my bare feet felt on the hard floor and the way the room smelled.  He then pinched one of them delicately – red, or maybe it was blue – to describe the toy to me.  I felt such a warmth towards his tender toy-loving side in that moment.

January 30, 2003

The Story of Your Hands

Your hands tell a story, silently imprinted with the many moments they have touched.

I study them firmly grasping the thick ceramic of a diner’s coffee mug and imagine how many cups at how many tables your hands have lifted to your mouth.  How many beautiful ladies have gazed upon you lovingly as you poured them coffee you made for them?  A kind, thoughtful thing.  The kinds of tiny gifts you hands give easily.  How many friends have laughed with you as they sat at a table with you, their hands that have lived their own many lives, stirring with spoons and lifting their mugs?  How many times have you sat alone and watched the world around you, and how many times have you sat alone and felt lonely and wished for something different in your life?

You take out a box of small plastic toys that you have collected and hold the tiny item, pinched carefully to display it to me…the same hands that once belonged to a little boy who pushed around toy cars and made rocket ships from pen lids.

I watch you expertly make use of your tools, wielding the instrument of choice: blade, writing utensil, cooking utensil…your hands always seem to know what to do…hands that have grasped so many different utensils and poured their talent out in many forms.

I watch you making the bed, tucking sheets, smoothing out pillows and I imagine how many times you tucked in your children.  How many times you paced the floor with your babies cradled close to your chest. Their soft new skin pressed to your flesh – flesh they are a part of – caressing their tiny heads, and your back in a gentle arc for balance as you pace and whisper comforts to the sides of their small and sweetly scented faces.

I see you smile and run your hand through your hair and I think of a teen boy who wanted to caress breasts and slide his hand inside the jeans of an admired girl.  Hands that first learned how to ease his swelling desire by discovering the art of self-pleasure and later caressed a breast for the first time…later felt the soft hair and the slightly swollen mound of an eager girl.  I imagine how eager I would have been to feel those hands all over my body, gently stroking, firmly grasping.

I see you washing behind the clear curtain with tiny beads of water clinging to it, steam swirling about, and candlelight making everything look very surreal.  Your hands gliding over your body that I have caressed and loved so many times.  And I imagine how many showers you have shared with other lovers…soapy and sliding lather over them, tenderly bonding each time.  I am grateful that I will be stepping into the water with you and now have the pleasure of your sliding hands that bond to me.

With your hands, stroke my hair…wipe away my tears…protect me…keep them near and hold my hands and their many stories so that that we may imprint new moments together.

It was brief.

All it said was, “I guess it would just be nice to know that I matter.  Or mattered.”

That seems to be a theme in my life in recent years.

But since my feelings are seen as a prod used to force in-kind response, I couldn’t send it.

I cried instead.

And felt a little lost.

I questioned myself.

“Am I really so horrible?”

“If somebody sees me that way, does that mean that is who I am?”

The answers don’t come quickly.

The mantras and the affirmations help.  Sometimes.

The wound is still fresh.

The blood is still wet.

And the sense that something was lost fills my chest.

And the determination to let it go fills my mind.

And here I am.  Changed.  Unchanged.  Hurt.  Half. Whole.

I am more than I was, but somehow feel like less.  For now, anyway.

I have to have faith in myself.

And the belief in my ability to heal.

And I must find a way to give myself closure.  In time, I suppose that will come to pass.

My bones are still

and the scent of you clings

to my mouth

my thighs

the soft dark shock of hair holds you

close

keeping what remains

in my tangles

in my hollows

I don’t want to breathe

I don’t want to be awake

Everything, even the shadows hold fast – for a beat

And my pulse seems to slow

The world is still in my heart

but I know that the sun will climb

then sink

and the moon will take its place

the shadows will shift

and the ants will crawl

but I don’t want to breathe

I don’t want to move

I don’t want to feel my heart beating

until it is beating next to yours…

****

For you, Will.  In case you ever forget how I feel…

Once vibrant and dewy in their glory

Now looking worried, dusky and dry

And in the span

The life of their journey

From seed in earth to vendor to vase

They have seen many things

Skies

And faces

And hands

And hearts

And though they cannot know

My heart

My desire

They carry the intent of my love

To you

And watch

And wait

To die

And yet they rejoice

at the moments of joy

they have brought

and it will be enough

it has to be…