I have lost touch.
Did you know hormones have curled my hair?
But only my pull knows the wavy spring
or the way ringlets wind around my finger
as soft limbs entwining a lovers body.
She touches my wrist
says "unfist your hand"
I look down to find a truth I did not know.
These clenched hands always prepared now
to defend
shoulders hunched and ready.
My fingers open to her suggestion
life line exposed
both her hands grab my palm
thumbs firmly stroking the trigger points
on the ear of an agitated dog.
I think to cry.
I want to.
Inside I did...
stomach distended with all that is unreleased.
And I know why babies fail to thrive without
touch.
At 49 I am such a child.
Yet God knows I have need.
The wind came up against my sweating flesh
with it's playground hands, bigger than my body!
They touched everywhere at once
my lips, my arms, my heaving belly
tussling my hair in a way that felt like nurture.
Oh mother, wherefore art thou?
I was touched.
Can a breeze be enough?
I reached out yesterday.
Her judgement harmed me, caged me further.
I am so set back that I consider I will always be alone
in wait for the wind.
.
.
.
.
.
Hi Annie, I dont have any deep words or thoughts to share with you other than that I wanted to say hello and I was thinking of you...
ReplyDeleteThat in itself is enough of a gift. Connection. Loved your last poem!
Delete>And I know why babies fail to thrive without
ReplyDeletetouch.
At 49 I am such a child.
Some very deep truth here about us all. Extraordinary writing ... the images are layered.
I think about someone who recently met me and said I was so childlike. I suppose it had to get done....the childhood. At some point it became a level that could not be skipped, like taking calculus before taking basic math. In order to understand, to be competent...you'd have to back and take the courses you missed. Thank you Matt!
DeleteI am watching a friend go through something with her daughter that feels so similar and i wish i could only convince her to not give up. Never ever.
ReplyDeleteI have a computer wallpaper that says "Never give up on something you cannot go a day without thinking about." I'd be happy to send it to you for her :)
DeleteSo, does that apply to us?
DeleteSeems to fit, for me.
Rabbit
There is so much great writing here in getting through a hard time.
ReplyDeleteBeing where the wind is speaking, is a pretty good place to weather any storm.
Funny how much nature has to say. I was listening to a radio program that talked about all our social media and cyber/virtual hours spent. It is said that we are losing touch with nature and our need of it. Sad.
Deleteannie, i think we are all in such need, only sometimes we don't know it. physical touch is something so incredibly healing, a bit of a mystery, without it it feels as though we are without definition. i imagine i should say something like, ah, but when you find the strength in the self... but the truth is, i feel that we need it, we are always repairing our loneliness and so get it where you can and give it as often as you can. some days i am in the habit of touching strangers on shoulders. (this is so out of character to my younger self.) instantly i see a change in both them and me. but i see you have an even deeper bruise. best to start now.
ReplyDeleteif you were near i'd hold your hand. we could walk around like that, really give people something to talk about. after university i lived in the caribbean. i went through a rough patch. a woman friend there, no hints of anything sexual, started holding my hand as we walked. it was the best feeling in the world, like a mother or a sister.
xo
erin
"I suppose I should say something like..."
DeleteTo say what is expected is often nothing short of a wall built of sugar confections. Sweet, but inedible.
I was uncomfortable when she took my hand. I do not know it I have even ever done this in childhood...girlfriends skipping hand in hand...that sort of thing. I do not remember doing so, and female physical contact was never something I wanted or took positively from my mother. I can feel a poem in it somewhere.
You would ask to take my hand
my discomfort the acceptable gateway drug
to nurturing acceptance
clammy though I'd be
pulling towards a baser instinct
that was never healthy to begin with.
Magnetic me
always connecting back.
You are never alone, sweet Annie. I love you and am praying for you to have peace. God WILL comfort you. Hang in there!!! (Small snail mail coming...) xoxo
ReplyDeleteJohn 14:16-18 "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; 17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
You always choose the best scripture Marion. I would love to feel comforted. I will try to open to it. I hope you got my snail mail. It is almost foreign, this tangible mail we send...no instant gratification. So we wonder, we worry...and in all of that we learn something we would not have otherwise.
DeleteI love you my dear friend.
hey Ms. Annie,,reading and thinking...
ReplyDeleteAh, a comment I am allowed to post? What a gift! Thank you Glenn. I hope you are feeling well. High Five to the Boss!
DeleteSo much about this poem grabbed me. Sometimes the caress of a gentle breeze is enough, other times, it's a tease.
ReplyDeleteAs a massage therapist, I know how many people need to get touched, not really massaged, just touched.
"...oh Mother, wherefore art thou?" - great line.
I used to consider myself a hugger. Now I shy away from it. I went to give a congratulatory huge to a co-worker and then thought to ask if it was okay. It's a strange new world. But sheesh, how right you are. People need touch.
Deleteannie, who is this who dared to judge? that is the worse thing, to ask for trust and then judge. i'm sorry that happened and i'm sorry your courage in unclenching was not nurtured.
ReplyDeletethis incredible poem you have written: it is the cry of the unattended. how painful. you are innocent in all this.
"i look down to find a truth I did not know"
i think the hardest part in turning a corner is knowing what you leave but no knowing where you'll land. it's kind of an emotional no-man's land. touch is essential, annie. like erin, i touch people too. i hug when i can. the psychologist virginia sitar found we need 8 hugs a day for optimal health. dogs and babies count. i;m starting to think trees count too :^)
i want to say this again: none of this is your fault. that you share this brilliant poetry and that you know what you need, even in a hazy crazy way, is leading you home. hang in,
love grows.
love
kj
Awwww KJ. You are always my champion and defender. The judgement was not meant to harm, but there is a box that some religious people cannot imagine themselves out of. In my mind, I tell myself they have not felt me, lived me, walked me, cried me, broken apart as me. Only God can know what lives and dies within my skin. Do we play God when we have an answer that we "know" fits all human kind? And yet I believe there are eternal truths that cannot be converted...ever. So I call myself the God player, and the hypocrite. It is these parallel truths never seeming to meet that make me feel hopeless. However, I will run the tracks until something makes sense.
DeleteI am not innocent in all of this. That is a concrete fact. That my guilt was perhaps predicated by something that wasn't my fault? Perhaps. So in some way your statement is true. But is so many others...not at all.
All my unknowing aside...I would take you in my foxhole KJ, knowing it was truly me you would protect, no matter how fucked up I was.
you make such beauty from this painful place you sit...you have a gift, are a gift
ReplyDeleteThank you for finding something within this piece. I am such a mess :) To find beauty here is the rare gift of someone who truly sees.
DeleteAnnie,
ReplyDeletea brilliant piece...some ominous truth that surfaced here...from within all of us...thank you for being brave enough to write this down...the chores at work have kept me busy(without any desire to be)..so remains to be asked...how have you been...take care...
Manik, you are I often write from an ominous place. We are melancholy. It is a different blood that runs through our veins. I don't understand it, but I am recognizing it. I am doing okay. I hope the same for you. We are WORLDS apart. I cannot even picture you in yours. Someday you should write of your surroundings.
Deletein a breeze, yes ...it will always be better that way, he so charming, for the little time together, a lie and it's over and you have to know that had it been longer, it would have died, and you wouldn't have suffered so yes to the breeze..yesto the wind and escape
ReplyDelete:) Lorraine. Our language difference sometimes confuses me as to your message. But I think you are talking about a man that breezed through your life. It sounds painful, and for that I'm sorry. Yet, there was also growth.
DeleteSometimes Annie your words touch my very soul. It's like you've seen the things I try so hard to hide from everyone. You. You see and you've been there. I can see it in what you write. Not so much the words you say because your eloquence defeats me. I can only trust that there is eloquence in meaning because right at this moment words fail me.
ReplyDeleteOne of these days you and I are going to sit on the kurb or maybe on the steps outside your place and watch the world go by. I will lean my shoulder into yours and we will talk. And I will try not to be scared and so will you ... I think there will be some comfort in knowing that some fears are groundless after all. xx Jos
I can't think of anything I would like better. You and me on the curb. We will make it happen one day. I see you always on the beach, as that is the only picture I have of you...pink shirt (so girlie!). Come down here to the "hood" and you'll be dressing all black in no time :)
DeleteLove you Citrus!
nice write. this piece is in line with things i have spoken of with others lately. i remember when i was without touch, as we all have been at one point or another. it felt like i never had been touched and never would be again. and so -- dare i say it?? -- i touched myself. nothing graphic. i just woke up in the morning and touched my arms and my face and body exactly how i loved to be touched. little did i know the magic that was happening. i don't want to go on and on about this, as a friend of mine was doing the same thing without any counsel from me. i think this is an ancient prayer. we not only learn how we like to be touched, we learn how to touch others. i suspect the touch also brings someone who touches us as well. or maybe i'm just a goofball. i tell you this becuz i just heard a similar thing from a friend and wanted to share. lastly, your vulnerability is a source of so much strength and beauty. i am really honored to be a reader of yours.
ReplyDeleteNothing is better than the touch of an old friend's hand!
ReplyDeleteThank you
methinks your curling hair is a sign of something great.
ReplyDeleteit's something i secretly (well, until now) hope for as i get older, the simple natural curl.
there's a metaphor in there somewhere about being relaxed enough to bounce back up, you know?