bangers & mash
well, i found him crying on the toilet. he asked me how i do it, again and again? banger after banger. i’ll show you how. this is a poem about grief.
in august i put myself in the way of transition. i didn’t know how it would go but there was no place else i rather be. i left work. this was my work. i skipped the first part of my therapy session so i could feel more alive. so i could live in the moments where someone else is dying and know that that day wasn’t mine, but i’d have one like it. a long blue night. i’d want Love there.
in august i held a grieving mother in my arms and she felt lighter than a baby girl. i could feel her aching heart beating in tandem with her baby girl who laid in her final crib. their last breaths together. the last shared air.
she laid across my chest like the daughter she is too. an older woman now than she’s ever been. don’t you age? with time? when the nightmares catch up to reality? i used to sleep. sleep. sleep this life away because it was gentler there. a softer landing. in plain language, sometimes being awake hurts so badly.
i held the weight of her grief in only a way i know how. lay your head here. on me. rest. i’ll listen. i’ll read the scans. watch the tests. be the ear. you sleep. you don’t need to hear this. you just have to be here. i’ll listen and i’ll know so you don’t have to. she fell asleep in my arms as her baby bird drifted home. i knew where she was going, because i’d want to go too. where the Love is. where the light shines brightest. where the wind feels like an invitation to where the four directions lead. where you can meet the pieces of you that you lost in the wreckage of autopilot. hanging on. i held her hand. that’s how i know. i thought all of this then and i smiled. i got it.
to let go! this is our final lesson! our final instruction! we must all! eventually! let go! of this beautiful life! i held a baby bird on my chest wrapped in blue along the edge of topanga canyon and she died in my arms. i sang her happy birthday, she was moving along. i know the density of a being in passing. i know the smell. and her sister…and her brother. and the doctors her mother, and me. tracey.
Peace peace