asleep

he tried to weave 
his words around her, 
lovely stanzas 
besotted sentences, 
lines he hoped would turn 
her head towards him 
make her see him for something special. 
more than just the other guys. 

she couldn’t understand half of what he said 
because she wasn’t actually listening. 

when she was asleep, 
his words would come to her, 

it was all things she had heard before 
lines like  
“did it hurt when you fell from heaven” 
or 
“that skirt would look good on my floor” 

in her dreams 
she grew impatient with his advances 
and tried unsuccessfully to get away from his conversation 
as he tried line after line 
in the hopes 
that she would smile 
and laugh 
and touch her neck. 
 
in her waking life 
she wanted so much more 
than just lines 
recited to elicit 
responses 
of romance and lust. 
whatever happened  
to interesting 
conversation? 

Written for Fandango’s One Word Challenge – ASLEEP

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Mom Guilt

We’ve decided to homeschool our first grader next year. Well, not really homeschool, but we’ll be using the distance learning option offered by our district. We just don’t feel safe sending him into an enclosed learning environment. I mean, how are 6 year olds going to do with social distancing and masks? Not very well I imagine. I certainly don’t envy teachers that have to go back in a month, I don’t know how I’d be weighing the risks and benefits. What if you’re a single parent and need daycare for your kids as well as needing a job to keep a rood over your heads? Teaching may be the only option. God, everything is such a mess.

Little Moe (that’s what I will to call my son, Little Moe, because I call his dad Moe in all my writing) is sitting on the couch playing video games on his tablet. We were never a very active family to begin with, but quarantine had made us sluggish and weak. The television is on all day. The PS4 is on half the day, and the other half of the day this kid is on his tablet. I try to limit the tablet and PS4, but the television I just can’t let go of. I need it on, even if it’s on kid’s shows all day the noise is comforting and the repetitiveness of the shows we watch is soothing.

I can’t get him out of the house except to go see my parents, Ama and Apa. They have a lovely little patio home with a green garden that contrasts with the desert around us. Little Moe runs outside and plays with their dog, Benny. Sometimes he waters all the plants, and sometimes he digs in the garden with Ama, but mostly he cuddles with Apa and has pillow fights on the spare bed. Or watches cable, just like he does at home. Or plays on his tablet.

I am at a loss. I know what needs to be done, but I cannot do it. I am afraid of the consequences and the yelling and crying that would be the result of me taking away his screen time. I mean, we totally use it as a punishment, taking away screen time when he’s naughty and such, but if I took it away altogether? I don’t want to know what would happen. And then I have to think about what he would do, and I’d love to shove him outside, but it’s pushing 100°F here and I don’t want to have a heat stroked son wandering around.

Catch 22. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.

I guess I have to make more activities in the house. More art projects, more science, more everything.

I wish I knew how to be that kind of mom.

writing poetry
on a phone
is hard.
i don’t know
whether to press
return or just
let the words flow
together
like the syllables
from my mouth
when i’m talking
of things i know
nothing about.

i don’t believe
in evil people
as much as i believe
in the idea
of people doing bad
things for good reasons.
evil as a ‘thing’
is a messy concept
more fit for
philosophical exercises.

i am a collection
of choices made
with only the information
available at the time
and if those choices make me evil
i will live with the consequences,
i will do better
next time.

i’m sitting here on the couch with my son watching dreamworks animated shorts. little one is 6 years old. he’s unwieldy, clingy yet independent, and constantly silly. it breaks my heart that we’re trapped in the house right now with no activities and friends, and no outside time really because it’s too hot this time of year. he stomps around the house and yells, letting out all his pent up energy in uncontrolled bursts, then comes back to the couch and cuddles up to my arm as i type this.

i was just looking at pictures of his first fourth of july. he was so tiny. looking at the pictures, at his six week old body, i can remember how he felt in my arms. the fragile solidity of his presence in this world, the heft of his freshly recycled soul.

ah, i’m getting all silly. anyway, it was a good memory i thought i’d write down. now i must vacuum.

bath time isn’t going well for my husband. i always feel so guilty when i hear him having trouble with our son in the bath. or anywhere, really. i always feel like it’s my fault or that i’m not doing enough. but all in all our kid is a good kid most of the time, and i can’t really complain everyday. i mean, i could, but it wouldn’t do any good.

i’ve been reading through all my old blog posts. they’re up there if you have the stomach for going through somebody’s web journal. it’s all personal stuff that i felt was okay to share because i was anonymous on the internet. then i was stupid and told a few friends who found me and i froze up and didn’t post for a few years, came back, posted lots of bad love poetry and sort of fizzled off. i think the last time i posted on the old blog was 2011. i started this one in 2017, but i didn’t believe i really had the ability or the desire to write anymore. well reading through my old shit made me remember how integral writing was to my soul at one point and how very very happy it used to make me. i want that passion and joy again. i don’t know if i’ll find it in writing, but it feels like a good place to start.

be warned. i think this blog will be mostly stream of consciousness writing and poetry. i can’t imagine anybody is going to want to read this. but i’ll try to write at least once a week, i can at least promise that to myself.

starting again

I found an old blog I used to have. I imported all the posts here, I’m not sure how to make them public, but I’ll try. It made me want to write again despite my fears that I can’t. But I’ll try and make a post a day. I don’t think anybody will read this, but it’ll be fun to see what I can come up with each day. Bad poetry, ridiculous observations, self loathing posts, and a healthy dose of perhaps comedy. Stay tuned.

olfactory hues

i’m avoiding my child and husband, quietly frekaing out about not being freaked out by our trip tomorrow. by our, i mean my 3 year old son and me. i’ve made a much bigger deal of this than I needed to, and frankly i’m a bit embarrassed, but there you are. me, sitting in the living room watching good eats and writing. or trying to write.

The lilies my husband got me for mothers day have overwhelmed any other smell in the living room. It’s intoxicatingly musky smell are what I love about them, and I’m so touched husbeast chose to get me flowers. I don’t remember the last time we could afford flowers for me, so I’m extra sad we have to trash them on Wednesday and tonight is the only night i get to enjoy them.

This smell reminds me of the early years in our marriage, when we were DINKS (Double Income, No Kids), and he would buy me flowers almost every month. He said that he wanted to make the ladies that I worked with jealous, and be the best husband at the office. He did well in that regard, all the ladies wanted him to teach a class on how to be good to your woman. All day long at work, checking in patients and taking co-pays, I had that lovely smell right next to my desk.

That time of year

I’m hiding in my bedroom. The cockroaches have returned and every little spot now looks like a bug running toward me or across my path. I hate this time of year. Oh, I love the mild weather and all the sunshine. The length of the day and the warmth even beyond sunset. 

I’m supposed to write about my experiences, as if they are of use and interest to others. Perhaps. Perhaps in a “don’t do this” kind of stickered awareness. Don’t have mental illness in your family. Step out of this simple life of old faded wallpaper and too much sun. Tiny steps, but come on, slowly, and we can touch all the bad things in the dark. I’m not quite sure of anything. The things I thought made up the sum of my parts don’t fit. It’s as if I am trying to fill a mason jar with as much as possible but I started wrong. Or I middled wrong. Or I ended wrong. *sigh* Here goes…

There were no toilet seats. No soap dispensers or really any soap at all unless I surreptitiously left it in the shower for them to miss when taking back our toiletries. No paper towels. No internet no phones no communication with the outside world unless restricted to five minute phone calls and a sixty minute visiting time. There were nice people. A lot of addicts that attempted suicide in all sorts of different ways, and two who merely overdosed and had apparent mental distress after being stabilized. I don’t know if there was anybody that was transferred direct from the jail, but then again this is New Mexico, I can’t really imagine they’d mix those populations.

When I arrived I was scared and tired and sad and perpetually on guard. I sad with my back towards the hallways and watched people in the mirror of the late night window. Mostly everybody went to sleep and I watching a blond dude with dreads walk a continuous circle around the nurses station. Over and over, I felt like he was going to wear a hole in the floor.

I can’t write. I can’t even fucking think. I don’t care about anything but my family.

wondermental

I don’t really have a story, just a life.