Unbecoming

I sit on my cushion

considering

the vision board

I made

One year ago.

A home.

And the woods.

And the water.

And the writing.

My dreams have

always been honest. 

Though at the time

I'd refused to say

where I was going.

And someone had been bitter

About my secrets.

Glue sticks and magazines

a paper tiger. 

I don't look back.

I don't look at now.

I am here.

and I focus again on my unbecoming.

Memories sift upward

Like hiccups

and vomit

and sighs.  

The prayers at his auntie's grave

When I asked her to save us both

From his spiraling. 

Who can understand the motives of the dead?

Only later did I understand to thank her.

My eyes don't sting

My face does not burn

I do not flinch

When someone asks

if I have children.

"Nope."

"I should have known,"

I say to my friend.

"He was not mine to keep."

"Love is never wasted," she said, "especially on a child."

I hold on to this,

When I cannot sleep.

I do not indulge

thoughts

of failure

in love.

Or careers. 

Or wonder if I was too much

or all the wrong things.

No.

  

Hurt people, hurt people.

I am proud.

I was a mother.

I am a mother.

In every atom.

This remains. 

Even if I am 

alone

now 

a mountain woman.

And I am

Less

alone now

a mountain woman.

I watch myself, more or less.

The way my hand lifts the coffee

to my lips.

And my bare feet rock the chair. 

I sit, and empty.

Clean mountain air

lifts my winter gym-built muscles

drying out rot.

I had grown so used to the roaches

And I lived so long

sitting in someone else's shit.

Now I cannot remember who she was.  

I think of the woman who said you raped her.

And how I remained ecumenical.

#MeToo

Happened After

And it's like it never happened

None of it ever happened.

Just like all the other times

It never ever happened.

The reminders are rare.

And the days smell like lavender.

And I wait for the tulips. 

I don't waste my time praying

For you.

Because you will have to find

Your own faith.

There are things

Love

Cannot 

Do.

And I am surprised.

To not be

The most surprised person in the room.

I am surprised.

There is nothing going wrong in my life  

Even if

You never

Let me see him

To say goodbye.

Even if you 

Never

Let me

See him.

To say goodbye. 

Perhaps the mountain crests.

Perhaps my legs can carry me far enough,

after all. 

Perhaps they already have. 

The next life, I tell myself 

Whether he's thirteen

Or a hundred years from now

When he plays me in chess at a coffee shop

And I don't understand his tears at first.

The way we don't remember.

All the lives we've lived before.

And I'll tell him

On that first day

That first next day

"This time will be different."

I will watch it fall apart as many times as it takes.

Until one time.

It will be different. 

This time.

Next time.

It all comes.

Nothing is forever

Not me

This mountain house.

This adventure.  

This time. 

This chance to unbecome.

Not a time to rediscover myself.

Not a time to be more.

Or achieve.

Or plan.

Just a time to empty out.

All the things I have lugged.

Unwanted

Gallons of 

Lemonade

And ancient echoes.

"I prayed to your auntie,"

I said.

"To free us from your demons. With candles and a bloody mary and a hundred dollar bill. You had work and told me to go ahead without you. Remember?"

And I got thrown out of the city

In a sonic boom. 

"So I thought it didn't work."

"I don't hear from her anymore," you said like you didn't care. 

Also like I'd stolen your son, your peace and your dead auntie. 

"We are women," I said.

"Sometimes, that still means something," I said.

To myself.

Because you always said

Blood meant more.

And even if you don't talk to me anymore.

I hear the things you always said 

In the dreams that come around 4:00 AM 

When I can't tell if I'm sleeping still or awake.

Things you always said

Before we women came together.

And compared our oral histories.

And wove blankets till morning.

Crying into the weft.

I know the ancestors prayed

This generation

would be different

The ancestors prayed.

This generation would be different.

This generation. 

This generation

Would change

The things

The last ones weren't brave enough to face.

I didn't confront you.

One of us did.

But,

I knew your shame would do more

Than I ever could.

I didn't confront you.

Another of us will.

Still.

One day. 

And your shame when he sees you

will do more than I ever could. 

Who will use my testimony?

Unwittingly?

Perhaps

To be twice as strong

As he and I knew to be?

But I needn't have that conversation

With the predetermined statements

Made vehemently

On every side.

I see myself again.

Always beginning again. 

With less clutter.

And a shorter list of excuses. 

I got hustled

By a New Orleans man

And I think about the money

And the dignity

And the shame

And the story of it all. 

Even after I saw

That the floors were tilted 

And the rooms weren't square

I tried to call it balance.

Because?

I had become

so frightened

The universe did not have enough

thread

to sew up

the holes

You made 

In 

My skin.

So I lied to my friends.

And I told them it was beautiful.

And I smiled for every selfie.

Because.

There was too much to hold.

For such a long time. 

But I am willing to think

In terms of millennia.

If necessary. 

Already now I can get my arms

Around it all

Again.

My imperfect house, dog, job.

Without a plan.

Or a person.

Or a child.

Just, me, trundling along.

This is 33, I think

Laughing at myself

For the first time.

Not too shabby.

A story or two?

It's all right.

This life is alright.

My naïveté

Blind faith

Loyalty

Like a 14 year old girl on a first date.

Actually.

Truly. 

As long as you don't

need it to be

something it isn't. 

This life?

Not too shabby.

Once you unbecome.

All the things.

You weren't meant to be so precious about.

Even if

You couldn't have known

At the time.

It turns out

Actually

Perhaps all along even: 

There isn't anything missing. 

Once you stand somewhere with some earth

Again.

This life. 

Before it becomes the next life.

Holds no mistakes.

Laughing, I muse.

I even became my own mother.

When finally I learned how.

You never know.

I whisper to the ancestors. 

Maybe he will, too.