Waiting Room

Hard blue chairs
Magazines
Sitting staring
Sitting reading
Sitting distracting
Sitting waiting
It’s funny how they design whole
Rooms around sitting waiting
What are we waiting for?
News of a loved one,
To be let in,
Test results,
Just to be seen?
By who, for what?
Maybe just to see for ourselves?
There is no clock in the waiting room,
No way to tell time is moving
But the hustle and bustle of hospital staff
And overheard nervous conversations
In the waiting room
Sitting wishing
That she is
Or it isn’t
Reading generic signs about
Washing your hand and caring for the
Common cold,
Everyone in the room having one thing
In common—
We are waiting.
Waiting hoping
Waiting dreading
Waiting pacing
Waiting to outwait the wait
And know something
Know whether she is
Or it isn’t.

Half

Half

You told me the other half today
I’d known there was something you’d been
Hiding
You hadn’t been lying, exactly,
Just telling me a half-truth
About your longer-for-other-half
Today you told me the other half
Well, sent me a link to discover it for myself
You sent me the link then went away
(Hopefully not for fear of what I’d say
Although that fear may be legitimate)
And I should have been relieved
I should have felt honored to have [re?]gained your trust
I should have been as happy for you as I was
Before—I should have
But this is what I did
I salted my tea with a few tears
Crying at your articulation of what I’d feared for years
Crying for lack of understanding my reaction
Why fear?
Why this darker layer? Why anger?
And why, in some small corner of my soul, loss?
So I followed your lead and left too
Abandoned rationality and responsibility
To deal with you, as I so often do.
The bomb—again, negativity: why?—you’d dropped in my lap
Required processing time
And a space not enclosed by four familiar walls
So naught but I might be destroyed
I knew that I had to tell you what you’d told me
When the tables were turned, oh so long ago
Well, half-turned, really
For mine was but a desire, whilst yours
Seems well on its way to becoming reality
So I braved frigidity to wrestle with fallibility
And what I half-wanted, half-needed to say
But didn’t fully believe:
“It doesn’t change anything.
I love you.”
The secondly is patently, unfailingly true
Which is probably why the first statement
Seemed like yet another half-truth to me.
Why does something that changes nothing
About us
Have such a direct effect on me?
I have no problem with the change itself
That, again, is patently true
So is the problem the fact that it’s you?
Can you still be my constant
Having weathered such a shift?
Are you still, even?
Must something change?
I’ve always defined others by you,
And now you’ve redefined yourself
In a way that affects me not
And yet.
I love you,
But redefinition scares me.
For if you can’t be you and you can’t be him
(For his spot is taken forevermore)
Then whatever shall we be?
What shall become of the seemingly indestructible “we”?
Come to think of it,
A third option exists,
Kind of slightly halfway in the middle
Not as much as I’d like from either side
But present, and rather lovely.
I’ll try to place you there.
It shouldn’t require much change.
For, no matter your other half,
You’ll always be part of me.
Now I repeat,
And repeat confidently,
“It doesn’t change anything.
I love you.”

For You I Will

For You I Will

You called me a bit past five yesterday
And asked if you could drop by, visit me
“I haven’t seen you in a while,” you said
I didn’t buy it, but said, “Come over.”
Baby girl, the truth I knew naught of, yet
In your eyes I saw what I could not see
A black cloud lurked shadow-like over you
Unhappiness: “I just don’t like it here.”
At first, I couldn’t see how you could say
Such things about such a wonderful place
Sensing this, you laid it all out for me
Darling, it hurts me to see you hurting
I just wanted to hold you in my arms,
Make you see—I wanted to make you me
For I am happy, or at least I was
Until you brought all of your pain to me
Don’t worry—you’re not a burden, my friend
Warrior-girl, someone must fight for you
I will do something I don’t do often
Something I hold in very high esteem
I’m going to make a promise to you
These are words you can be sure that I’ll keep:
I would give so much of me to see you
Smiling, laughing, playing for me again
I will give you parts of me, all of me
That I can spare—we will make you happy
With different arms, pursuing different means,
Together, we will find your missing piece
I’ve promised you, and my promise I’ll keep.

Go Ahead and Gasp

Go Ahead and Gasp


I have a confession to make.
I
Hate
Children.
Well, okay, ex-step-Father always told me
Hate is a strong word.
So I guess I’ll say I
Strongly dislike them,
The whole lot—all kinds.
And I want to know what goes on in the minds
Of all the people I ever meet
Who are, quite frankly, simply appalled
When I tell them I want no children
Not one, none at all.
I mean,
I simply don’t see what’s so wondrous and grand
Why a child is the cutest darn thing in the land
Let’s take a look at this motherhood gig:
So first you get pregnant
Quite probably the worst part
You get fat
Your boobs and feet swell
Morning sickness
Actually GIVING birth
And don’t even get me started on lactating.
Ew.
What am I, a cow?
So then you have a baby.
And they place it in your arms
And you’re supposed to think it’s cute
And maybe you actually do
And you hold it for a minute or two
Count all of its fingers and toes
But it doesn’t come with an instruction manual
No buttons I can press just to see how it works
What the hell do you do with it?
You take it home
It cries
It eats
It cries
It poops
Or maybe pukes
It cries
It sleeps (if you’re lucky)
It cries
It cries
It cries
And you tough it out
And then you have a toddler
Who draws on the walls
And must be potty-trained
And gets into EVERYTHING
No matter how many times you
“Baby-proof” your house.
And then you have a child
Who has to start school
And then needs help with their homework
And wants to bring cupcakes to class
And wants the new red lunchbox Johnny has
And just
Keeps
Growing.
And then you have a preteen
In middle school
Which obviously means
They know absolutely everything about everything
Why, they’re almost teenagers
This must mean they’re infallible
And when they find out they’re not,
It’s the biggest deal in the world.
And then, good Lord, they’re teenagers
Angst-ridden, beautifully tragic teenagers
Who want want want
And need need need
And drive and party and make you worry
And never ever live up to the ideas you had for them
And then blame you
And then they finally turn 18
And you feel like you’re done
But the college kid calls home and shows up for break
And not to mention tuition
And the adult still wants to come home for Thanksgiving
But won’t take you in when you get old
Parenting: you give up your whole life
And then continue to give, give, give
And for what?
To hear the word Mommmmmmmmm
For all eternity?
No thanks.
Make love, not babies:
This whole mother thing
It just isn’t the life for me.