Breach

I will leave...now. I enter the car at 11:00 PM and begin the 6 hour ride home. After a brief glimpse, the moon hides in cloud and fog. The sky is alternately pitch dark, or hazed with city up lighting in blood orange hues. This night has gone horribly wrong.

My hands are shaking and my belly quivers. My lips are pressed together and begin to ache. I try to part them. Clamp them shut again. I have not cried, though the pressure builds. All the cells in my body seem to be knocking together and I white knuckle the steering wheel in a silent vehicle.

My body knew first. It’s always the way. You came and sat on my couch tonight from the opposite one where you lay, and my guts begin to scream with long ago memories of something gonna happen, of I remember this, and run run run. But you are not my dad, and you are not my mom, or those men in the park, or the one on the cable car. You are step-father, and I know you…I trust you. So I disregard the warning until you scoot closer and your hand reaches out to the top of my shoulder where it meets my neck. The base of my throat flutters crazily and for a moment I foolishly think, hope, that you have something fatherly-daughterly to say, that you mean to encourage and my fear is ridiculous.

I turn to you, questioning, and you pull my head to yours, purse your lips. Oh God, oh God…no No NO NO!. I turn my head away and your lips graze the corner of my eye. I thought I was done with the likes of this. I thought molesters were far, and flashers were gone, and there was no more trust to break. I thought I was old. I would never have expected this here…in this house…you. I am blindsided and confused. Did that just happen? What the fuck? You pull back, apologize. I mumble…what…what did I mumble? Why don’t I slap you? Why don’t I shout? DAMN IT. I inwardly hang my head. I am still broken. I am no stronger. Have I learned nothing?

Do you know how small you have made me feel (daddy)? Should I tell (mommy)? Where is sister? I am 2, 4, 6….I feel a child and I want to throw up. I want to cry but I can feel myself curling in, shutting doors, windows, drawing curtains and dimming lights. Cocooning, I hug the sidewalk as I go to my room and shut the door. I am so small within my frame that I see my clothes hanging past limbs, as a costume from the dress up chest. I don’t know where 48 year old Annie went? How did I wind up right back where I started? HOW DID YOU MAKE ME THIS SMALL? HOW DID I LET YOU?

I cannot get air. My heart is pumping wildly and my knees shake unsteadily. Mom knocks on the door. She knows. He has confessed.

I tell myself, “Fight Annie. Do not fall in upon yourself again. Remain open, remain open, remain open. YOU ARE FORTY-EIGHT YEARS OLD”. My body wants to dredge its horrible history up to the surface, as if to finally lay bare its secrets. I push back my pig-tails and hug my Raggedy Ann, so unsure now. The moon is full, and shines close here and far there. Same moon. I grab my pacifier and crawl home,.

Memory Lane

It started with a contact on Facebook, from my very first friend of memory...kindergarten...pre kindergarten? I have two vivid memories of childhood and they both involved Kimmy. And she wrote to me this...


"And now..memory lane...Remember when we walked your brother to the neighbors house for a dinner invite. He in his tie, walking down that long driveway and farting all the way (he was nervous!) We thought it hysterical! And, do you remember talking a dance class one summer with me? "Joy to the World..all the boys and girls..joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea,joy to you and me.." still reminds me of that and you.

Do you remember one summer you got invited to 2 birthday parties and I went to the second one without you! They were on the same day and you had already rsvp'd to the first one. The one I got to go to was a miniature golf party and taco bell! You were so mad at your mom and me! I guess your mom rsvp'd me for the 2nd party! Strange! Funny! Your party was just cake and milk and pin the tail on the donkey. Sorry about that."

I didn't remember. Don't remember any of it. I felt bad, that she might feel slighted, like she wasn't worthy of remembering. So I sent her a couple posts I had done about my mom, the deficit with which I start each day, and alluding to the general screwed up nature of me. And in response, she wrote...

"I will tell you that I probably remember much too much of your childhood--it broke my heart then and stayed with me until now--it is still with me

I am so sorry
I can't breathe seriously
I can barely see through my tears to write you
I always knew something was wrong
even at five, at six
I saw it, felt it and I wanted to take you with me to a different place--I remember her vividly still."

And now we will meet, and hopefully she will tell me of these things, give pieces to a puzzle that collects dust, unfinished.

I am frightened
I am excited.
I'll keep you "posted".

(The photo, Kimmy scanned for me. My brother, she and I. Her sister stands.)

Mercy Waits

She watches him disappear, only a shadow now...shaking in the pain of late stage cancer. His face so drawn, pinched with the anguish that no amount of morphine can diminish completely. She wets his dry lips and smooths lackluster hair, but there is no love big enough to make him live, bring back pleasure. Why this ending of long drawn out suffering, where Mercy takes a seat at the foot of the bed, and for reason unknown, just waits...and waits...and waits? As much as she wishes him live, she wishes him die, to end the struggle that miracles had passed over and cures had failed. He has no strength to eat and sleep is elusive. His eyes follow her, beg her, glance at Mercy who has turned a blind eye. This is not her husband any longer, it is a disease which has removed him in pieces and stages. Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage done.

She sits with Mercy as he whimpers in a new wash of pain, bones rattling together in an effort to thwart, but muscle has long ago been replaced by despair and he has nothing to fight with. Begging. And she argues with Mercy, pleading his case...like he needs one. She cannot watch him suffer. one. more. day. Cannot. Forcing Mercy's hand to reach the items in her pocket, the items assembled "just in case", with guilt and trepidation keeping their secret, until now. She ends the struggle, takes the life. Mercy shakes it's head, knowing more, seeing farther.

She looks down at her husband and he is beautiful, and he is her man, and he is her everything, and he is dead. And she killed him as sure as the cancer would have...but he begged and it was right. Wasn't it? OH GOD, oh God, what has she done? Bring him back, OH GOD, one last kiss, one more sentence. His pain is gone, but so is his breath, and the warmth that was left in boney hands. OH GOD, SHE KILLED HIM! She cries uncontrollably. This is not something she can undo, and Doubt is standing in the doorway with hands on hips...formidable. And the crying stops, and the dark descends, and the emptiness fills all the hollows with sorrow.

Mercy stands and takes the hand that forced it's own, reaching it back into the pocket that houses the secret. Sure and swift the motions that bring the blood from the one left living, to drain across the one now dead. It is a useless sacrifice...does not revive him, does not relieve her. She will live another day even though she cannot. She will face the family, even though she cannot. She will sit with the consequences and the loss, even though she cannot. And Mercy sits at her feet and waits, and waits, and waits...a pocket full of secret.

(I found out yesterday that a great Uncle with terminal cancer passed away, and his wife had a hand in it. She then tried to take her own life, but is still alive and hospitalized. That's all I know. We were not close due to family divisions (thank you mother), but I did love them once and can understand both sides of this struggle.)

Lost Soles

MMPP


The tree is dead of leaves and dry as timber....yet it has a voice more powerful than the living. A ghostly bark that calls for soles in pairs and gets as it demands. Hungry it is ... to reconstitute foliage which once completely shrouded its limbs, longing for a summer that will never come. Who was the first to wander by and hearken to its whisper of insistence? Perhaps the first cannot be traced, but the last...

Fresh marks on the bloody trail where bare or stocking feet have shuffled off. No doubt when the first stone pierced flesh, a backwards glance was cast and realization dawned ugly. So quick and stealth the loss, that it was not even a memory, just recent history. Where does one go when they have given up their sole? Me thinks they wander among us, pretenders who feign freedom in naked appendage, who dip their toes in fountains, and swipe their heels along the grass. We see them hippie free, laughing at the hot constraints of others who are digit shod. But I know better.

for what else have you, but to pose
when there is only a hole
where once a sole?
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