Chatterbox
Poems
by Sandy Day
Smashwords Edition ~ Copyright © Sandy Day 2011
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Chatterbox is from the imagination and wishful thinking of the author and is therefore fiction.
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Cover design by Michael J. Emery
The winter approaches
colour falls from the trees.
Soon the boughs will be barren
outside my window.
The light fades faster,
the day is gone before I know it,
and the candles want lighting.
I carve a pumpkin,
numbing my hands
in frozen pulp.
Stabbing eye holes
and a maniacal grin.
I light the jack-o-lantern
and watch it giggle
in the darkness, flickering
and cooking
its own brain.
A scarecrow
comes to life.
He stands before me,
plaid shirt, cocked head.
Makes me follow him into friendship
with his sad stupid eyes,
fools me down
a long, long path.
While he’s sleeping.
I find the matches.
Light his shoulder,
watch it smoulder.
Watch him blacken,
curl up and, fry,
Goodbye.
Hello Winter.
Ever since I was a little girl I’ve been aware of an attraction to the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz. I loved his expression, his long sculpted face, his bony loose limbs and plaid shirt. I found his intelligent kindness irresistible, and the way he accepted Dorothy, he really turned me on.
My dad resembled the Scarecrow - but the kindness? No fatherly companion danced alongside me on my yellow brick road, and I’ve gone looking for him my entire life.
I’m trapped by the domesticity of my existence. For two decades now, since Mark and I became parents, I have carved the pumpkins, I have made the home. Mark loathes Hallowe’en, and his depressed mindset poisons every area of my life. But one Fall day, touched by inspiration, I begin to write poems.
The Apple Tree
Gnarled old thing
with twisted limbs
and thick grey bark.
I lean on the fence
watching
as birds fly in
disappear into the leaves
reappear
flustered,
flutter off drunkenly.
The fruit glows
dark and shining
like eyes across a room.
I wonder
for I ate apples
sweet and new
but I picked apples
wormy and dry.
Such a divine old tree.
Somehow so familiar.
This fence is falling down.
The Fall is underway. I travel to my mom’s house north of the city for Thanksgiving. On the way we stop at an orchard and the kids run off to pick apples.
As I lean on an old fence waiting I think about my new friend, Laurence. He is a friend of Mark’s, a musician, and we’ve connected online. Though I fight it, his attention delights me. By day I correspond with him. Our email boxes fill up and our instant messengers rarely turn off. Chatting feels wrong to me, I believe he attracts all kinds of birds. I don’t completely trust him, I’m not sure what he’s after. But I can’t stop chatting with him. He’s kind, and funny, and attentive. And sometimes he intoxicates me.
Yes
I say yes
to this gift
on my knees
fumbling for words
yes yes yes
You want me this way,
this madly?
Then I am yours.
And I say yes
to this gift.
I didn’t see to read
I couldn’t find the lock
I wouldn’t turn the key
I didn’t hear
what I could not say
it was there in my mouth, yes.
The light pours in
the early morning
a whisper
wakes me
my first thought is of him
your prayer on my lips
lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
I say yes
to this gift
this prickling quenching numbing
and humbling
gift.
I am blessed.
I say yes.
I’ve learned to pay heed to coincidence - to try and detect a spiritual sign post. So when I meet Fletcher at work, and we too become instant online friends, I pay close attention. Between them, these two men share the names of my first boyfriends; like my husband, Laurence is a musician, and Fletcher is an architect, like my grandfathers. They come together in one big confusing gift.
I struggle to understand why I am suddenly bombarded with male attention. I’ve been listening to Tom Waits’ Closing Time continuously, in the car, at home, in my mind. And I can’t stop crying.
Laurence is a good father. He speaks of his little daughter and the love pours from him. My heart expands as I feel the vicarious father-love.
Many times I kneel beside my bed, wailing. I sense God’s hand on my head, and my bed becomes God’s knees as I cry into His gown.
God gave me these two friends. Every day, whispering in my ear. All day, messages of encouragement and appreciation. Fletcher, especially, pets me, never tires of me, leads me on and on.
And the poems come pouring out.
Laurence and I often talk of God and of the Bible. It delights me to find someone who is inspired by the archetypes of biblical characters like Job and Delilah. Laurence writes songs and grabs music from the air. I am in awe of his talent. I want my own inspiration to continue forever.
On the other hand I am attracted to Fletcher’s torment as he wrestles with his demons. “Just keep saying, ‘Yes’,” I write to him one day when he is particularly discouraged. I want him to join me, to follow my lead into a new inspired existence. To my surprise he answers, “Yes, Yes, Yes!”
Clementine
I peel a Clementine
and contemplate the world.
My world.
Soft little peel
spongy, barely clinging to the fruit
gives way
like a thin chemise.
He handed me this orange
so perfect and round
absolutely quenching
sweet and bursting in my mouth.
The sky storms
winter falls
the sun obscured
by a million miles of frozen tears.
I know what I want
what my heart wants.
The lingering bitterness of citrus on my fingers.
Hungering
for more of this magnificence
this sun in the palm of my hand.
Pray for wisdom.
Fill me up.
I start reading the Bible each day, not because I’m religious, but for literary inspiration. I rise earlier and earlier to avoid Mark and to connect with a spirit now filling my days. A gentle shake of my shoulder wakes me, a whisper in my ear. I read the Psalms, and I write. Every morning on the way to work I scribble poem ideas in the car. Driving while writing is dangerous but I can’t stop the lyrical swerving and spinning in my mind.
One day I read, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst for righteousness: for they shall be filled.”
It’s December and it’s my tradition to buy Clementines. I bring my lunch to work and eat at my desk. I peel a Clementine and contact Fletcher. Offering him a segment, I describe the juiciness, the sweetness, the explosion in my mouth. “Yum!” he types back.
I still cannot believe he flirts with me. Me? Old, married, me? I fight against his flirting. He is too good at it, with six ‘m’s and four exclamation marks. I struggle to balance the fear I am being played, with the bliss I am being fondled. Whatever - the poetry, the connection to God, the buzz in my brain and my body; it’s worth the confusion.
The Clementine is the first virtual food Fletcher and I share. I devour his attention. I think I have scurvy.
Baby Zombie
I am trapped
can’t escape
banished to the cellar steps
examining my shoes
through my tears.
Living in this house
moving room to room
unnoticed
singing behind the curtains
floating in the bath.
I am a baby zombie
undead
bumping into walls
while everyone, whistling,
goes about their day.
How can I know
what I missed
if I never knew
it was missing?
My heart knows.
I am broken.
Need a doll doctor
to sew me up,
clean these eyes
bend back my leg
And walk out the door
and keep on walking
til this house
is far behind.
But I am trapped
by the fear
there is nowhere
but here.
Chew my arm off instead.
I begin to process my past. I recall the child I was in snippets. My family moved in the summer between Grade 3 and Grade 4 so memories of the house on Lauralynn Street are from before the year I was nine.
My kids don’t remember much of anything from before the age of eight. Their memories are influenced by the baby-books I wrote for them, and from photographs, videos, and stories. Their pure unadulterated memories are in their brains somewhere, private and locked away, and none of my business.
I remember wandering around in the house on Lauralynn Street feeling like a zombie. I think, as a cute little chatterbox I was an oddity in my family. My parents were Atheists who enjoyed their cynicism. They warned me away from sentimentality, sniffing and scoffing at the Hallmark cards I received from attendees to my birthday party.
When my father arrived home at night I pounced on him to ride his shoes and search his pockets. In due course he rubbed his whiskers on my cheeks, I think to deter my kissing. The Certs in his jacket pocket, which I thought were candy, covered the liquor on his breath.
My mother too shooed me from her in those Lauralynn days. I remember her saying, “you’re too big to sit on my lap.”
I discovered when I had my own children that at eight years old they were still very much my babes who at times needed to retreat to the safety and comfort of my lap.
‘Kissy Day’, my family called me. Apparently I desired an exorbitant amount of kisses.
With nowhere else to go we are trapped in our families. I told myself, if only I can adjust myself, life’s not that bad.
My self.
I discover my self through mirrors. Fletcher to me: you are lovable. Laurence to me: you have something to say.
The Baby Zombie comes to life.
Resolution
My lips shall not speak a resolution this year.
Instead they will whisper a prayer
kiss a hand
press it to my cheek.
Bereft and longing
but I cannot resolve a path -
will not resolve a path.
I pick my way through the orchard
stepping over ancient fallen branches
and rotting fruit corpses.
The sun
sinking into the horizon
blinds me, though I see a tree in the distance
a silhouette
black and invisible
and I am pulled forward
even as it disappears.
I say to Adam,
get out of my way,
you’re blocking my view.
That tree mesmerizes me.
I hear my beating heart
a serpent hissing
a bird in laughter.
Trust that God does not mock us.
Turn over the hand
kiss the palm
let it happen
without resolution.
One day I write, “I am tempted...” And Fletcher types back, Hissssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.
He is like the serpent whispering in my ear yet I sense something more than the blissful temptation of the flesh.
I reread Genesis: the story of two trees. God banishes Adam and Eve because they eat from the fruit of the first tree, the knowledge of good and evil. The second tree, which we don’t get to, bears the secret fruit of eternal life. The truth is, I don’t want to live forever, I just really like trees and want to get a glimpse!
Fletcher’s hisses thrill me and I can’t concentrate on much else. It seems he wants me from the other end of the Ethernet line, but one day his casual mention of a wife jolts me into reality. He’s married?
Christmastime.
When he’s home with his wife, I cease to exist.
I begin to go out of my mind.
Christmas with Mark this year is a battle of wills. Some time in November he cancels all Christmas spending. I don’t think he is serious but I call his bluff. I do nothing Christmasy except buy a few modest gifts for our kids and enough stuff to fill their stockings.
For the first time in many years I send no Christmas cards. I leave the boxes of decorations in the closet. I make some cinnamon buns for breakfast and some cranberry sauce for my mom’s Christmas dinner but otherwise, I am on Christmas strike.
Mark says he hates Christmas, so I honour his decision. I will ignore Christmas. See how he likes that!
A a gift to myself I order a silver bangle engraved with the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. This is the prayer I prayed four years ago, sitting on the floor of Mark’s bachelor pad. We were negotiating our reconciliation. The telephone rang, I knew it was his girl-friend. I motioned I would leave, to give him some privacy. But he waved at me, mouthing, “No. Stay.” So I sank to the floor, closed my eyes, and prayed, “God, grant that I may seek rather to love than be loved...”
Mark ended his love affair. He came back to me. We started over. I thought our marriage was what I wanted.
On the drive home from my mom’s Christmas dinner Mark cranks the volume on Steve Terrel’s ‘This Guy’s in Love’. I want to puke. My skin is crawling. I want out of this life so bad! But where will I go?
As usual, a few days before December 31st there is the usual talk of resolutions for the New Year. What will I resolve?
I want to want what God’s will is for me. But my desire for Fletcher is burning a hole in my out-box. His loving attention seems to attach me to a sizzling source of ecstatic inspiration.
I harbour a secret, which enchants and torments me. The New Year is a mystery. I want my lover, who is not my lover. I haven’t heard from him in over a week. Not one word. I resolve to sit tight and wait. What choice do I have?
Silence
The long cold silent winter
stretches out like a thin blanket
on a loveless bed.
I trust
life is breathing –
a barely beating heart
in hidden leaves and sunken acorns
frigid bulbs.
The silence menaces me.
No birds
no dogs
no screen doors slamming.
No ribald teenage calls
at two in the morning
from the bus stop across the way.
No songs
ringing out on six strings
sung with laughter
and too much red wine.
The sun colours the sky as it rises.
The bleakness blushes
and I am reminded
this too shall pass.
The patience taught by winter
cold but not frozen
nor forgotten.
One afternoon Laurence signs on and it’s apparent he’s drunk. We spend the afternoon singing and laughing. As songs play on his iPod, he weaves the lyrics into his silly, intoxicated chat. I can almost hear what he is listening to.
We share the same musical taste; somehow we share the same past. I feel like Laurence is a long lost twin. Comparing notes we discover we love the same artists. Laurence touches my soul with music. Our harmony is liberating; music Mark sniffs at, Laurence loves; I feel confirmed.
Later, I send Laurence an apologetic email, embarrassed that I encouraged such a ribald serenade from him, a waste of an afternoon. But he too is silent as he slips into his home life.
Trapped and anxious I sit in my apartment watching the sky outside the window. I know I am in the midst of something monumental but I know not what.
I cannot keep working at my job. My boss despises me. When I try to debrief, Mark sneers at me. It is winter. I sense Spring will come, but I keep forgetting.
Business
I’m gonna take fear out back and shoot him.
Stand him up against the shed
and blow his fucken head off.
See his brains scatter
gritty and grey
like a cremated body.
I’m so sick of fear
want a divorce
from this decrepit old man.
Sick of listening to him
waking with him
feeding him
tucking him in at night.
Courage is not the absence of fear
but moving on
dragging fear along behind.
So maybe courage is the creak
of the rocker on the porch
which continues even as the wind blows
or when I sit to contemplate
what’s what?
If I keep one toe to the floor boards
courage
creaks as I rock.
The mound of earth
by the shed
which worries the dog
aint my business anymore.
Did I mention I’m sending Laurence poems? He inspired me originally; rather, his courage inspired me. He sings songs which open him up, make him vulnerable. And I want what he has. I started by trying to write songs, to write lyrics, and as I struggled with the rhythm and rhyme, every now and then a poem burst through. Eventually I abandoned the song writing. After twenty years of silence the poetry flowed.
I tell Mark I am showing my writing to Laurence and he asks me why, and I think he uses the word, presumptuous. He asks with mild jealous interest if he can read my poems. And I tell him, of course, they are posted in my Facebook notes. He hates Facebook.
But my new friends don’t. And Laurence loves my poems; or at least, he reads my poems. He makes comments like, “beautiful language”.
I send him a new poem almost every morning. When I send “Business” he messages me right away, “are you okay?”
And I am. I’m just angry. I’m sick and tired of Mark, and I’m sick and tired of being afraid to leave him.
Mark and I split up before; we parted for almost a year.. Our separation was fairly amicable and mutual. But during the first few months of it I realized I was a bit of a relationship addict and that all the time I focussed on Mark and what he did or did not do was time I avoided looking at my part in our marriage.
I become addicted to my sex partners. They give me a ‘fix’, lift my mood, provide me with a reason to live another hour. The lack of loving in my childhood is soothed when a man turns his gaze to me.
While Mark and I were separated, I naively thought I would “work” on myself, and Mark would come to realize how much he missed me and needed me, and we would eventually reconcile.
But he was soon, too soon, in love with one of my friends. One of my ex-friends. Their romance killed me. I was devastated. It felt as though my un-lovability was on display for the entire world to see. My ego screamed, “Everyone can see the problem isn’t him – the problem is you!”
I had no idea I was so fragile; that my grasp on mental health was so tenuous. I was stricken and the grief was endless. Betrayed and abandoned, there is nothing more painful to endure.
Mark and I eventually reconciled, and we moved into this two bedroom apartment with our kids. But now, in the early winter of the fourth year, I am done. I want out again, and I don’t know how. Most of all I’m afraid I’m deluding myself.
Words
I’m haunted by words I said yesterday
they won’t let me go.
Promises, vows, intentions,
blowing the curtains on a windless night,
but they’re just the soul
of a dead decision.
I’m afraid
nothing is so simple.
To fall in love
is dead easy
but not simple.
The ghost is numbing, dumbing, humming.
And I board up the old house.
The weeds will grow
and the ghost will stay
but I will go
because my heart has learned new words
it is dying
to say.
I know I must get out of my marriage but I don’t know how. Mark and I promised our kids; we promised each other. I told myself ten thousand times the grass only appears greener on the other side of the fence.
I am guilty of a sin, one of the seven deadly ones. Avarice. Covetousness. Wanting more than I already have.
I begin to pray, over and over, “Let go, let God.” I put my life into the care of a Being whom I believe loves me like a kind and conscious parent. This Being, whom I choose to call by the three letter word, God, has a plan for me, knows what is best for me. Over and over I tell myself, everything I have is what I need, everything I need is what I have.
So, what do I have? I have Fletcher and Laurence. And I have Mark. I have my new-found writing. And I have my restless, addicted heart. I have a job, which pays the bills, but I also have a new boss who after a month of picking my brain has turned on me, is making ridiculous demands and has slashed my budget and responsibilities to zero.
I want out!
Over Christmas, with twelve days off, I determine to find a new job. I put it out to the universe; I need a new job by the first of February.
I need someone to trust like a sister, who isn’t my sister! Someone who will listen as I tussle and rail about Mark. I confide in Jacqueline, a new friend. I tell Jacqueline my marriage is over and I want out. I tell her I will sit on the decision for three to six months. Jacqueline is my witness.
Then I pray, let go, let God.
Spinning
I have been spinning
my poor-me’s into gold
for all the days
I can recall.
And using that gold
to buy everything
that I can hold.
But I have more to spin
each night
Rumplestiltskin.
I stand in the rain
wondering when
you’re going to show up?
Cold, and soaked,
with all this gold
in my pocket.
And I will only wait
another hour
or two
then you can go
and get your gold
from some other soul.
To all you fools
who didn’t buy,
my outrage is screaming
from the tallest tower,
naked and bullied
and ashamed.
There.
I told you.
Now you know my name.
I don’t reveal everything to Fletcher. I don’t tell him I was a selfish, shrewish, man-hating woman who castrated her husband and walked around sour and judgemental.
Was I?
I don’t write to him that I’ve had years of psychotherapy or that addictions run through my life and through the lives of my ancestors and relations.
I am an impostor.
And it’s easy. The Sandy he views online and loves is one-dimensional. He writes, “You are smart, and fun, and awesome.” I learn to love the word, ‘awesome’.
When we were children my sister, Sheryl, who was two years older, viewed me as the source of her problems. No one quite knows why but around the time I was born, my father retreated from our family. I know from photographs, and from stories my sisters tell, that a time existed when my father was involved with our family. In the Lauralynn Street days he even drew a Christmas card: our family, with me perched on his palm, a Swee’Pea character, a baby; a shred of evidence that he once loved me.
But he retreated, and it began around the time of my birth. So his fatherliness was for me only a legend. For Sheryl, his love was ripped away, and though just a baby, I suppose I was the most convenient person to blame.
She taunted and tormented me. Her teasing and cruelty were ceaseless. She pooped in the bathtub and blamed it on me. She flung her dirty underpants across the room and laughed when they landed on my doll’s head. She locked me out of the house, locked me in the bathroom, kicked me and flicked me and sneered at me. Her dominance became the story of my life. I did not ask for it. I did nothing to deserve it. And I knew of no way to fight back. When I tattled on her, she retaliated further, screaming at me, “You, suck!”
I was a coward because I could not abide the torment, because I was unprotected, because I did not fight back. My passivity was my defect; it was no honour to be a conscientious objector, to be neutral like Switzerland, it was a disgrace and a weakness, and Sheryl despised me.
As a teenager, boyfriends left me, betrayed me, dumped me, and fooled around on me. My heart was shattered many times. Restless and hungry I wrote of the anguish, but I stayed removed from the pain. I felt simultaneously unlovable and grandiose. I breathed in and out the cynicism which clouded my childhood. I was my father’s daughter, my mother’s daughter, I used my gift of the gab to manipulate and control.
The gold I once sensed in my core disappeared with my head of blonde hair. I am ashamed now of my Rumplestiltskin past. I have gold. I must spend it.
After Oz
What happened after Oz?
The next day,
when Dorothy unpacked her suitcase
were the ruby shoes crammed in?
Did she find bits of straw,
and long for those sad dark eyes?
Was oil smudged
on her favourite bra,
were bits of lion fur stuck to her sweater?
I’ll tell you.
Dorothy soon bored of Kansas
hanging on that gate.
Her never never go looking virginity
moved beyond the backyard,
the dry barren prairie.
The caravan in the ditch down the road
beckoned her,
the night sky pitched a tent,
and the wind howled.
She grew impatient
and embittered with the cajoling
disbelief and stifling strangling
apron strings of her family.
One day she tore out the ribbons and bows
jumped a broom stick
and left that frigid old Aunt Em in the dust.
Smoking opium and partying with flying monkeys
she shopped every shoe store
threw Toto a bone
and went looking for that scarecrow.
And when she found him
sadly thinking thoughts of her and all they shared,
she reached into his clothes
to make sure he was all there
and found his most important part,
her deep connection,
beating there.
Fletcher identifies as the Tin Man, he says so himself. Of course I think he is mistaken. I project that his heart is the size of Kansas. He so loves me, I can’t believe he’s heartless.
When I watch The Wizard of Oz my psyche recognizes the expression of superficial soothing and the bemused observation of Dorothy’s earnestness. I too saw those looks on people’s faces, heard those confused murmurs. The mirror held up to me, convinced me I was in the wrong place. I belonged in Oz, in Technicolor, but I resided in Kansas on the grey-scale farm. I travelled a short distance down the yellow brick road when Mark and I split up the first time. But I went scurrying back to my old bed as soon as I saw my house land on the wicked witch of aloneness.
When we negotiated our reconciliation four years ago, I convinced Mark I would change; I had changed! I kicked off the ruby slippers and landed back in the safety of his Kansas. I believed if I was different, that is, if I behaved differently, things would change.
I desired Mark with desperation during that reunion. I wanted only to hold him again and make love to him.
He was less certain.
He eyed our children as one standing in a bakery line-up might watch a brownie tray deplete. He was terrified I would snatch away Jasmine and Aidan. I had already wielded my power by forbidding his calls to the cottage during my vacation. He had no choice but to rely on the kids calling him, but being kids, they were too busy. And when they did call I heard them leaving messages on his answering machine. I imagined he was never home; always off in his lover’s bed.
Mark’s love affair ended. He adored the love his girlfriend brought him, but he began to doubt her. His flickering attachment to me, and his desire to nail down his children, the two creatures on the planet whose love he could be sure of, were enough for him to attempt a ceasefire with me.
We moved back in together. I sighed a breath of relief and tried to begin again.
Fingers
This terrible joy
this exquisite pain
all at once like a storm.
A part of my soul’s secret
flies with you
and when I think
for a moment
you don’t know it
I forget all my lines
and stagger under the wasted passion and
the missed chance.
What happened here?
How, in the dark,
and with just our fingers
did we find each other?
My heart hurts
thinking
my heart hurts
remembering
so my brain tries
not to.
Sometimes stupid decisions are made
by people at desks
with stiff shirts
and thick wallets.
And I will never understand,
but if you need me to,
and disbelieving
I let go.
But you will never go -
and I feel
this terrible joy
this exquisite pain.
The chemical sensation of phenylethylamine in my brain is exquisite and agonizing. Being in love is something most of us crave, but in its grip, especially when love is thwarted, it is almost unbearable.
Of course, I will not will Fletcher away and he’s not budging. Although he doesn’t ask to see me in person, he hints he’s unhappy with his wife. But who isn’t? My marriage is also unhappy. But I am afraid to say so, at least to the man I married; and a few short years ago wanted desperately to marry again.
Many days my connection with Fletcher astounds me. We share so much. Sudden thoughts of him stab me. The separation is intolerable. But we have no choice. I find myself in fervent prayer: “grant that I might seek rather to understand than be understood”.
Since I Met You
A hundred poems
a notebook full
a heart torn open
no pages missing.
Since I met you
the planet shifted
the islands drifted
the tide pulling
my desire for you
castaway and drowning
out to sea in choppy waters
no raft
no compass
no way home.
It is a pleasure
on my knees
to feel God’s hand
upon my head
my kisses ‘round his navel
comforting
and breathtaking
to put out to sea
with Him.
But longing
and lingering
in the sadness
of never knowing
never touching
since I met You.
A dark and stormy sky
an ever-changing ebb
and flow of ink
and paper see-you-later
disappearing
in the darkness
and the undertow.
I swear I am experiencing the ecstasy of bridal mysticism, and all I do for it to happen is open myself up to God’s offers.
I know it’s wrong to chat so much with a married man. I try to steer our conversations onto chaste seas. When Fletcher types something flirtatious I pretend to ignore it.
My teeth are misaligned and I have an overbite. In the Lauralynn Street days I had a cross-bite which was supposedly corrected by an orthodontist. What I ended up with is temporomandibular joint disorder and slightly buck teeth.
I have experienced jaw pain, like arthritis, most of my life and it became acute the year I quit drinking. I was in my forties with two children and a demanding business. I began to try to ‘turn things over’. Every time I took back my will, my jaw throbbed. I came to believe that I was not in charge of my fate or of anything in my life. I read that my 5th Chakra was out of balance, my will. Once I pieced it together, I learned to whisper the Serenity Prayer, and the pain dissipated. But even a wilful thought triggered the aching.
Now my jaw is throbbing for the first time in years. I know it is not God’s will for me to have an affair with a married man. Any dope can tell me that! So I battle. I try to keep my attraction to Fletcher in check. I try to keep our interactions platonic. I try to accept my reality: I live with Mark whom I chose!
My jaw throbs, wakes me in the middle of the night. One Friday night I post on Facebook: “My jaw is killing me!” Mark and I are watching a terrible movie about Bob Dylan when I hear the pop of the Facebook chat. Fletcher. I never hear from Fletcher on weekends!
“You need a doctor?” he asks.
He is referring to my status about my jaw and once again his close attention delights me.
I laugh, and write that my jaw hurts when I am willful.
He types, “What are you willing?”
I don’t answer.
I go and sit in my armchair.
Mark says, “Are you watching this movie or not?”
What am I willing?!
Like a cloud of incense smoke the question permeates the inside of my skull. What if this is God’s will for me? Married or not, what if I am meant to know Fletcher?
I am stunned.
The jaw pain diminishes over night. I wake the next morning pain-free. The ache never returns.
Last Whisker
How can it be?
I strain to see
and pluck and pull –
futility –
I thumb the prickly
little wire
pokes through again
each week, each hour,
growing
like a menopausal weed
upon my witch’s chin.
And the old man,
afraid and spent,
fingers frail as chicken bones,
pulled down the shades,
lost his stones,
bid goodbye,
death by poverty,
alack, alone.
And as I stroke
my soft new chin
in pleasant contemplation
I feel no more
the stubborn prick
of days of sin.
My inner whore delighted
to be free and faithful
gorges on gingerbread,
little boys,
and wild boar.
One night after New Year’s Mark and I go out to hear a band in a bar. The guitar player is remarkable, kicking off his heavy snow boots in the middle of a song so he can get to a pedal; wailing out Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind, Love” on his electric guitar. I think we have a good time.
Mark drinks several pints of beer. The alcohol loosens his inhibitions, lowers his level of fear. He is drunk. He is brave. On the way home he says, “If this is the way it’s going to be, Sandy, I don’t want to be married anymore.”
In the days and weeks to follow he regrets his drunken proclamation, tries to rectify things, rails against me, quits drinking for seven days, insists on telling our kids that we are splitting up again, and wrestles in his own web of confused wants and needs.
But I am clear. After all, God is speaking to me daily. I am channelling poetry which seems to be getting better and better. Many days I look at what I wrote the day before and am astounded; I possess no memory of putting the images together into a poem.
I am blessed with a young face. Though my hair is mostly silver, my skin is almost unlined and I have no aches or pains. Almost fifty, the moon could set its watch by my menstrual cycle. But I do grow one whisker under my chin. I first noticed it around Christmastime. It’s in a tricky place, hard to see even with my extra strong reading glasses. Each time I manage to pluck it out, it grows back, and I marvel at its tenacity. But when Mark decides our marriage is over – the whisker disappears.
Sinners
Sitting among the sinners
I am at home.
I love one who washes my feet,
teaches me to lift my eyes and prayers
higher than the desert stars
in the darkest night.
A lost soul sleeps through the scene
waiting for the dawn.
Only moves when he can see.
Trusts not my company.
The wine in this stone chalice turns to water
as I drink.
I thirst to learn the ridges and valleys
of his Jerusalem,
long to take those hands and hold them
to my lips, my breasts,
search those dark eyes, hear that voice,
watch that tongue speak.
I look back to see the petals on the path
where we crushed through the garden.
I hear the stories told, the truths so bold,
the laughter thrilling.
How does he lie by his sleeping cattle,
knowing his disciple waits?
The trials are many,
awesome foes and bloodied thorns,
but gentle sleep is waiting.
My bed too empty forever without him.
Heart open, eyes lifted, prayers enter
like love letters.
I sit among the sinners
receiving.
As the realization creeps in that Fletcher is not listening to the same God message that I hear, I strive to maintain my sanity.
I believe God put us together. Fletcher will save me from my husband and from a life of bookstore marketing, and I will save him from his wife.
But Fletcher is just living his life, oblivious to my insanity.
Ever since I discovered boys and alcohol as a teenager, I used them to fulfill me, validate me, take away the pain of rejection I experienced in my family.
Mark was not the solution to Sandy; I’ve had a long opportunity to discover my relationship with him is toxic. And Fletcher, the new solution, is wrong for me too because I am going insane from the uncertainty, the teasing, the doubt.
I crawl into a support group meeting to find sanctuary. If I stay close to God all will be revealed. I am anxious to know God’s will but I have to live each interminable day, not knowing.
One thing I am certain of is my support group. That is where I belong. Someone says, “I always felt like an alien; then I came here and I thought – you people are from my planet!” Me too. These sinners are my sinners. I’ve committed the same wrongs, thought the same thoughts, made all the same poor choices – ignoring the long term consequences when presented with a quick fix.
All I know, as I struggle through each day, my marriage disintegrating, unemployment looming, my love affair driving me mad, is to get myself to a support group meeting. Here I hear the words from God I need to hear. I discover the safety and sanctuary and hope that God will restore me to sanity (have I ever been sane?) if I rightly relate myself to Him.
A Dead and Dying Dog
still vicious
curled up in rigid
death pose,
tail bent under
like a boney whip.
I back away
no sudden moves.
I see the blue
below his beady eye.
He’s still alive,
and watching.
Those razor teeth
that whiskered jowl
any minute
one last lunge
and I am flying fur
and mewling.
To think,
he licked me,
not long ago.
Exposed
I choke my fear.
Quiet, quiet, back away.
In my throat
no noise, no purr.
His ears twitch
he hears!
Freeze!
Still as a snail,
listen to the night,
the death watch,
wait for his eyes to shut.
Nine lives to ten.
Where
oh where
is that tree?
Mark terrifies me. His anger terrifies me. I don’t want him to know what is happening to me, it’s too precious to share. I am fulfilled and joyful as never before, but the cost is leaving behind the life I know.
In the summer, before this happened, I read Richard Florida’s Who’s Your City? and I tried to get Mark talking about the possibility of moving from Toronto to a smaller place, an artists’ colony (though I would never use that phrase with him), maybe a place where other baby-boomers congregated. I couched my interest in as non-threatening a manner as I could, but he had reasons why it would never work. And the number one reason was he would never find a job.
A dead and dying dog. It seems to me that terror runs in his veins. And he is more threatening to me than a feral canine. My notions of freedom and change cause him fits of angry anxiety.
But I realize I am free. We are all free. We can walk away from anything. Life is ours, and we are only aware of living it once. This is my real life; I don’t need to wait any longer for it to begin. God is very close. I know I am on the right path.
In the past, I was confused, stayed in situations which were dangerous to me. I had a hunch the world was unsafe; and it turned out I was right. The world is unsafe when you are living in it with people who terrify you.
Not Listening
I’m lost
and all the night sounds
aren’t helping.
The wind howling
and I must trust
one voice. Single out
one sound above all else
and follow.
In the cacophony
I’m confused and lost
but the voice is shouting
so strong so sure I’m sure
it is the right one –
powerful and sensible
and I think I promised to obey
it?
Oh fuck!
I’m lost again.
Can’t hear.
So many
babies laughing
sirens singing
waves crashing
a train whistling in the night
my lonely longing.
Control myself!
Find that voice
follow it simply, blindly
to my silent grave
regretting
every step
I’m taking.
Every step I take, giving notice at my job, turning down another corporate job, accepting a position with a performer to be her agent, dissolving my marriage – everything connects. God is blatant with me: I am inspired beyond belief and the poems pour from me.
Even as Laurence’s messages encourage me to leave my old life behind, he tells me there are people in his own life who discourage his musical aspirations. I am baffled because his talent seems so God given.
I believe Laurence is offered the same opportunity for change as me. I think he could make career moves but I don’t presume to know him. I didn’t know his past, his parents, his wife. I don’t know his situation except for the small part he reveals to me. I sense he listens to his own guidance, and sometimes I despair for him. I wish I could pass on to him the faith I am experiencing. God pats my head. And I move forward another day.
Shallow End
He stays near the shore
skipping stones like forgotten anniversaries.
The fish at this depth are small
and swim in frantic schools
with very little to say
from their tiny mouths. Too small to catch,
too useless to eat.
The shallow water is safe
takes great effort to drown here
and the sun beats down tanning
shoulders and knees to a shoreline glow.
The scene seems grand
like a postcard from a summer long ago.
But the stones are slippery
on the bottom
and the night turns the water black here too.
The sand crunches under the foot step.
Who wears their shoes on the beach?
An ominous sound -
a man walking on the beach in the night.
Nothing at this depth
is worth fishing for.
The end with Mark feels ominous. I am so afraid. I don’t want to be alone. I will die if I am alone.
I latched on to Mark in my twenties. For many years I was content in our relationship. I was happy to be married to a man who didn’t say he thought I drank too much; who wanted simply to amuse himself; and expected only to break bread with me every day.
When I could see it I appreciated Mark’s authentic self. But now we are middle-aged with two school aged kids. It seems Mark’s real self was long ago swallowed up by a faith in lack. His fears rule him. And my struggle frightens him into lashing out.
I rock everything. And I do it because I believe God is telling me to. Though I am terrified, I have an inkling all will be well, eventually.
More?
I ask for delivery
of a kind
and passionate spirit.
One to touch me
in the night
and sing into my soul.
I ask
for what I found
but cannot hold.
And I ask for deliverance
from my lonely will
and fear.
Step back and watch
my self pressing through
this mirror.
I didn’t know
my heart was delivering
until they told me so,
and now I ask the question,
how did he ever let me go?
I ask
for everything
in return
and have nothing left to give –
except my wish
my prayer
my love
in this whisper on my lips.
During our reconciliation I had the opportunity to make amends to Mark. At the beginning I didn’t think another twenty years would be enough time. The first twenty years flew by so fast. I wanted to show him each and every day that I loved him.
I tried, but two years into it I was suicidal. I recall Jasmine’s grade 8 graduation. The afternoon was blistering hot. I wore a long, pink floral-print dress. I parked the car on Parliament and walked across the Rosedale bridge, minutes from the viaduct, the “suicide magnet” in Toronto. I peered over the thick cement railing at the winding road below. I thought, this would be a good way to die; and then another thought, no one would even notice.
My insides hurt. Jazzy was enthralled with her father. I never experienced that, and I fought my own jealousy and revulsion. Mark adored her and let her know it. I felt unloved to the core. I believed I was the only responsible parent, the steady hand, the guiding force. I got nothing in return. I was ashamed of my thoughts and feelings. After all, I chose this.
I gave up on any fulfillment for my soul. I resigned from wanting.
Resignation, I discover now, is a bigger sin.
It is not too much to ask to be loved. I ask God for deliverance. And I receive.
Not Listening Again
You yell in my ear
your blathering stack of cue cards
and every stupid thought
which enters your thick and foggy brain.
Dumb words like swollen rotten food
bloated possums hang,
can’t you see I don’t care?
I’ve heard enough
of this superficial hyperbole
like a record skipping
on the same insipid chorus
heard it all before.
My heart is cold
and shut up!
Go away
stop snoring in my bed
get the fuck out of my head.
If you awaken from the dead
and your voice quietens
to a whisper
of humility
or sorrow
or regret
then I will listen
maybe.
bp Nichol taught my creative writing classes in university. One day I sidled up to him and complained, “I don’t know what to write about.” He looked at me, patient as a teddy bear, and replied, “Write what you can’t stop thinking about.”
That bit of instruction never left me. But I couldn’t allow myself to write what I couldn’t stop thinking about!
During university I lived with Mark but we weren’t yet married. My mind was full of all kinds of self-defeating and grandiose notions. I was confused, and blocked, full of fear, and most days hung-over. I had an anxious yearning – I knew not for what.
This craziness was my life, relieved only by two things. The first relief - drinking, and the quest for an alcohol induced oblivion. I sought a controlled stupor wherein I would still be walking and talking, not puking and spinning and saying things I later regretted. That elusive oblivion, in which I didn’t wake up with a cursed hangover launching me back into anxiety, I never found it.
The second relief was a more permanent and lasting fix: love. When I am in love, my world has a focus, a purpose. I am loved in return, and so my place on the planet is validated. I am meant to be here; someone loves me! But beneath it all, like the dread of the hangover, is gnawing doubt, an anxious attachment.
My ego tells me that once he, whoever he may be, gets to know me, he won’t love me anymore, because I am unlovable. My father didn’t love me. What more proof do I need?
So I didn’t write. The poems from my university days are about swallowing bats - the tiny flitting rodents with wings, and silence - stifling baffling silence.
In my second year of university I was a raging atheist. But one of my favourite courses, listed as a Humanities credit, was The Bible. We combed through the Pentateuch and I found it brilliant but the human hand on it was vivid and discernable to me. I was not budged to love this Yahweh character.
In the Bible class was a young man. He was cute and smart; his father was a minister (a strike against him in my books). He seemed to have a crush on me. But I lived with Mark, so I stayed away from this young man. For years I wondered what my life would have been like if I had considered partnering with a respectful, educated man who seemed to like me for my mind?
I threw in my lot with Mark and between second and third year of university we married. My career aspirations were hazy. I thought I would keep going to school, and write. Something would come up.
Mark continued to play music. His ambition was most musicians’ – to play on a recording which becomes a hit and pays out in continuous royalties - but in the meantime he played in bar bands.
“Write what you can’t stop thinking about,” bp said. I type this to Laurence, who doesn’t need the advice.
And what I cannot stop thinking about is Fletcher and the mess I’m in. I cannot suppress all the reasons I can no longer abide Mark. I let it out. Laurence encourages me and once tapped, the pump gushes. Laurence reassures me many times, “It had to come out.”
Knock
I knock.
Not knowing for what
I hunger.
Not bread nor stone
not fish nor serpent.
I asked, before.
No answer,
before.
But now I knock
and He answers.
I seek
and He finds me.
I love
and He loves me.
Somehow I know how
to give good gifts
and meekly ask.
He thunders in response.
The law and the prophets
say this is so
if I do to man
what I most want man to do to me
my wish
will be heard
and answered. Do?
A fish a stone
a tree a bone.
I knock and my life is opened.
I was willing to wile my life away in the armchair in my living room. I told myself no one is fulfilled, not by a relationship, so I resigned.
But God had other plans. He plunked Laurence and Fletcher into my life, I couldn’t very well ignore them. And one thing led to another and I wrote.
The connection to God through the love chemicals in my brain is astonishing. I am high and buzzing most of the time, I am kinder, gentler, things seem funnier, and more beautiful. I am energetic and I float through my days. And I become beautiful - to me. When I look in the mirror, for the first time I see a woman whom a man could love.
Everything lines up, my new job selling concerts; Mark’s departure, leaving me to start my life fresh and free; I am filled with love, turned on to life, and full of the word ‘yes’.
Trees
Do not wonder when
will I break?
A February wind blowing through
the open window is
cool and fresh.
In the dark
God is out there
before the dawn
in the black branches
and inky blue sky.
I am soft
but I am not weak
and right now
I am not even fragile.
The rain fell all night
the trees are sodden
and the tiny twigs
at the tips of the branches
are drunk with drops of water
and nubby
with buds of promise.
If it freezes
today, and the wind picks up
I expect to slide down the sidewalk
and see those skinny twigs strewn
across the dirty snow.
Much is said of trees,
and written.
Roots grow deeper
trunks grow thicker
around the middle
and proliferate
in my poetry.
I enjoy the roughness
of the bark,
the tightness
of the foothold
in the crook of the branch,
the pinecones and needles
and abandoned nests.
I am not breaking this time.
I hear the chainsaws
droning in the distance
but I am not afraid.
Laurence is my tree; a strong presence sheltering me. Fletcher on the other hand is the serpent in the tree.
As my marriage disintegrates both men worry and check in with me frequently. I don’t think I need protection. I believe what is transpiring is ordained.
Mark finds another apartment, but he isn’t leaving until April Fools’ Day.
After he learns Mark is actually moving out Fletcher wants to meet me, in the afternoon, at a movie. “Wear a skirt,” he texts.
The imaginary portion of our affair is coming to a close. We are going to meet, to touch, to kiss. I am ecstatic, but nervous.
I think we are in love; I understand him, and he more than understands me. This is not an affair, it is providence. My friends and sisters say things like, “nothing good can come from anything that starts this way.” I don’t want to hear them.
February Days
These February days
I remember
this light, this rain,
this sound of car tires
on the slick streets –
when I was in so much pain
and desperate
driving him to work each way
calling
a hundred thousand times a day –
frantic to make amends
to change my ways
and have a chance to love
completely
and be loved again.
And now
this epitaph,
I say,
I don’t regret anything.
And he says,
All I have is regret.
Which I will forgive
but never forget.
I tell Mark I regret nothing. After all, we tried to save our marriage. I know bitterness is useless. A good use of my ego is to decide what attitude to take, what perspective to adopt to view the world.
When we reconciled I was desperate for his love. And he told me he would one day trust me again, that the wall between us would come down, someday, he said. I grew comfortable. I trusted him again. I felt secure. And I was accustomed to being belittled, ignored, and scorned. I told myself it was better than being alone.
Whenever I use the phrase, “I told myself”, I am aware of my ego at work. My ego, the strong, alert, decisive strand of me turns to the cowering, tearful, huddled self and takes control. “You are better off in this marriage than alone,” it says. Over the years my ego has added all kinds of addenda to that: “It is best to live with the father of your children”; “If you are married, people will believe you are lovable”; etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
I do not regret the years of our reunion. Mark is a decent man, fun at times, a good father, an adequate companion. And I speculated if I was different, the relationship would be different. I was different! I amended. I learned to keep my big mouth shut when I was angry. But I also kept my big mouth shut when I was hurt.
Mark didn’t want to talk about what happened after we broke up the first time. His love affair was terrible for me. I can’t tell his story; I can only tell my own. It suffices to say he took up with my friend and had a very public and visible love affair. The man who had not wooed me in twenty years, who had seemingly forgotten how to be romantic or sexy or kind, made love to this woman for the whole world to see.
Clearly the problem was me.
Caged
The tiger paces
back and forth
back and forth.
She hears him growl
impatient.
She stops to watch
and he looks right at her
eyes locked on, mesmerizing.
Transfixed
she thinks,
he’d be so soft to touch,
one touch,
if only
while he sleeps.
The cage,
taller than a life of regrets
seems insurmountable.
He looks to her
so harmless
so inviting
as though she could set him free
so he can eat her alive.
I post “Caged” on Facebook and Fletcher types to me, “Do you want me to eat you alive?”
I pretend to not catch the cunnilingus innuendo and I type back, “I am more afraid of being swallowed whole!”
In my mind, which is full of fantasy, I believe he is caged; trapped in a marriage he regrets. I believe he feels about me what I am feeling about him – after all, he chats to me endlessly! He seems enchanted by me, he’s affectionate, he laughs and flirts, he focuses on me like I am prey.
And I am nervous. Am I prey?
We have much in common, and the banter is witty and effortless, but he is so smooth, so skilled, he speaks fluent MSN.
I believe he is my soul mate. I believe we will consummate our passion and enter into a real life relationship. I believe I will meet and love his children and he mine. I believe. But I have doubts too. And it makes me nuts.
I want it to end, but I am never letting go. I am tortured. I think he is the caged one. But it is me.
The Dam
A pool
a vast, still, manmade lake
of unmoving, frigid water.
48 years of cold cold tears.
Murky ice,
can’t see my hand before my face.
Muck on the bottom
dead, lifeless.
And God stands on the shore