Dear Sylas,

You never saw the sun.
Created and cradled in the dark
I knew you alive,
inside my body we lived together
-with exception of the kicks your Father felt
no one knew you.
Grief is lonely
and days after you'd left our space
I still felt you move within
an infant ghost
haunting my womb.
Grief is like fear,
gives reasons for fear
-as if I needed more.

My body empty,
I feel alone among friends.
Our worlds stopped that day
-a frozen clock.
Others keep ticking.
Babies are born,
born of friends and strangers.
My guilt buries me during quiet moments.
I could not keep you alive,
Daddy could not save you.

When I first knew of you
my response was not joy
and in many moments I thought
"is this the right time?", "is this the right man?"
did my thoughts betray you,
push you away,
make you wish you belonged to some other mother,
did you know I loved you?
Did you feel it before I?
Self doubt and anguish fill me.
I wonder if you left in peace,
lulled to sleep by my beating heart

I like to think that as I slept the night you left
your kicks were spelling " I love you"
in the only language you knew.
Your Father is strength.
His grief expresses at times as forgetfulness,
a symptom of the daily life he took on too soon,
the routine he took on for me,
for your  big sister.
She misses you,
asks about you often
-what happened and where you are.
She reminds me to have patience
mostly with myself
.

and with whatever else the universe has in store

Diamonds

As we lay

-close as unassembled puzzle pieces lumped into a box

paper thin breath hangs between our lips

his tears come as perfect diamonds

collecting at lower lash and tumbling down cheeks

these diamonds communicate as our gift for words has failed

a glacier melts and pulls away from it's shore

we are sailing into blue, cold, open, endless possibilities

from the warm sun of where we thought we would be making our nest

strength to strength

a perfect circle of energy

from me to him

from him to me

I see in those most beautiful eyes

and feel with each touch of his steady hands

we can do this

as one

charmed

tell all your secrets
to the girl
with big eyes

her heart is big
a safe place to rest

lay them with the others

secrets swirl in deep pools

Easy Math

a curl wrapped around my finger
two pairs of tangled knees
two grins
four eyes smiling

Two Birds

It's dark outside
and I can hear the birds
not singing

they are somewhere safe and warm
in nests
in nooks of trees
wrapped in tiny
tufts of fur
of soft leaves

Smile

It's better when you smile.

the one thing I can count on

It's not that it's hard to change my mind or that I don't want to or that I can't.

I just have to be ready for it.

Then I just do it and go on.

I think it happens automatically, it seems I realize one day that I'm changed. I wake up and things are different and once I change my mind then that's it.

I'm a very stubborn Taurus, ask anyone.

I think it happens when I let the emotion tied to my thoughts go. Letting go is hard, but so is creating the space to let myself feel everything so that I can let go.

There isn't always a good time to cry, or scream and instead of expressing my anger by yelling I usually do something reckless, generally harmless so don't worry. Nothing I haven't told my bestie in great detail and mulled over the next day trying to extrapolate a very quickly learned life lesson from.

Back to mind changing: I wrote this last blog:"I *think* I should get that feeling of family when it's just Audrey and I but I don't-I'm still processing how that makes me feel"

I lied, I do know how it made me feel and how I felt was like shit. Well, I changed my mind and this past week has been really nice.

Here's something else I changed my mind about. I was at the beach with friends, the sun was setting and in a sea of couples I didn't feel jealous. I didn't feel lonely. I felt complete standing with my toes in the ocean. I explained to my ex that it was really hard for me to enjoy myself when I was the only single girl (like at my friend's anniversary party) or when I was the only one who's family was incomplete (like Easter at a friend's house). I don't know if he understood, but being around all the families made me feel like shit. It was partly jealousy, partly a huge reminder that my husband is dead. That the three of us will never be a family.I also find myself feeling bitter when I see two people happy together instead of being happy. I didn't feel that at the beach, the bitter is gone too. (thank god, b/c I did not like that girl)

I will likely feel cheated, but when I can finally lay my grief to rest then that will go away too. It's a long road from here to there. I'm sure of that.

Maybe all of this is connected and I really only had to change the way I see about one thing.

My family.

"If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it. ~Mary Engelbreit"