BABYSTEPS
(This one isn’t just for me. I want my words to echo the reader’s hurt, validate and embrace, maybe help with pain that’s been hid safe, away. Our brains can be very protective, not prone to asking first, they decide on their own, what’s gonna be hidden from internal view. Then, over time, they may dole out the details, a bitter poem in memory’s form, line by unsubtle line. That’s when we get to decide what to do with our past, let go? let linger? or hold fast? I know it’s a private matter, I don’t want to poke and prod, just to encourage with words, givin’ hope a nod.)
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She still feels those little hands, tiny toes, warm belly against her cheek. On days that can bear the weight of memory, she allows herself a backward glance, just quickly making sure. Of what? She can’t put it into words yet, even after so much time has leaked away, leeched her days, lashed her brain.
But she doesn’t want the past to let go, the memory to grow thin and unreliable, those small limbs to find stillness, again. No, she keeps the precious pain sharp, slightly insistent, a tender reminder, a bookmark in the form of one child’s voice.
She’s held this part of her past so close, tight, in place of that small shape that’s been torn from her and away. Possessive, she checks on its integrity, listening to those soft sounds, ripe and round with laughter, alive inside. That’s the most important part, making sure her little one is alive to her, before tucking her in for another long night.
She’s wrapped her up in “facts” that insulate, keeping her, outwardly, at arms length. No one else can know the whole of it, as long as it’s only hers, she thinks she can contain the hurt. She’s never allowed herself the liberty of words, like this, before. What’s changed? She wonders…
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Perhaps she’s no longer afraid of losing what can’t be regained, inspired by those humans who’ve busted thru, won’t let her just sit n stew. Maybe words are aiding her, crafting courage, others pursuing a closer look? Inner terrain, broken landscape of pain, but no longer out of Love’s healing range…maybe?
She’s the only one who knows the truth, her little one gone in her own youth, two lives lost in separate ways, she’s felt left behind to solve each day. ‘How to live’ is the equation, up til now she’s been expert at failing, surviving in entropic stasis, barely looking ‘round her jumbled mental spaces. Wanting instead to make friends with death, kill an’ maim for some nebulous gain, substitute knife action for life in her brain.
Then, sudden:
Oh, how she’s fallen hard for words, even letting them prod and purge, slake her poetic thirst, hoping they won’t make it worse, but unable to resist her darkness’ urge, sorta-sick erotic fix. So she let’s ‘em roam an’ range within, black abyssal places, plunging harsh to find her ground, core plundered sore, and…she’s being reborn?
One babystep at a time.
Her little one’s a living rhyme, words givin’ a new way to hear her inside.
Maybe now she’ll start checking on herself, signs of coming alive, words and verse replacing original hurt, enough to enjoy life for once, embrace Love again…maybe.
She mustn’t forget:
Babysteps, walking away from death, the little hand holding hers, the small breath before a kiss, so very alive inside her own poetry’s rhyme.
