During those years my children were at school, I was like a ghost haunting the other parents, teachers and staff. Barely visible, gauzy, unnerving. Only the children could see me clearly and hear me – and the visiting grandmothers. I walked in the shadows of the drama mamas, dressed up to drop off their children. Dressed like rebels, dressed like liberals. To me they were the pawns of the government who allow them to feel like rebels by keeping pot marginal. “Don’t make trouble”. They scold the homely questioner. Their voices scrape in their throats. Expensive gypsies. I am a ghost to them, transparent and unreal. They might think they glimpse me but my presence has faded already into a small story, a ghost story of a mother who used to haunt this school. And when I open my eyes my son is sitting next to me and asking what the tooth fairy does with all the teeth. I picture his teeth in my jewelery box, tucked into pillowed satin pouches. I don’t know why. I don’t have a plan for them. I only know I want to keep them. My child’s teeth.

It’s later, now.

After the peaches

and the pie crust and

after Dad said

he has lymph cancer.

It’s after spending 3 hours today blanching,

peeling, slicing and spicing

peaches I bought on Tuesday

and placed in the brown paper bag,

on the Mexican tile floor.

Beneath the side board

they rested into themselves

for four days.

Until their scent

dripped thickly from the air

and sweetened us with sunset vapors.

It’s after your wine glass shattered,

scattering broken glass like tiny seeds

all over the kitchen.

I couldn’t be sure

that no glass hadn’t gone into the bowl

with the peaches.

Because you couldn’t bear to feel how sad you felt,

you turned on anger instead.

“Why were the peaches there?”, you pushed.

“You didn’t leave me any room in the kitchen to work”, you tried.

And for once,

I stayed quiet.

I could feel how very sorry you were.

And I was angry too.

For another reason.

Sure the peaches. Sure my hard work. Sure.

More, that those peaches were for for my dad’s birthday.

My dad who has cancer now.

“It could be his last”, I’d heard myself say.

I had thought I’d accepted

that my dad and me -

we’d never accepted each other.

We’d accepted disappointment.

That we’d spent our relationship trying to change each other.

That he is dying just when I figured out I could stop trying and

I had. He was okay with me. And it no longer mattered,

finally, if I was okay with him.

I hadn’t realized that I was still trying to win him over, win his approval

with a peach pie-

until the peaches were lost.

Ah! but what peaches they were!

It’s so hard

to let go of

The peaches.

To let them go.

I had sliced myself into the bowl

with the peaches.

So ripe, sweet. And ready

to become something more than

I thought I was.

Ready to nourish.

Offering myself

in celebration and

in mourning

of  daughter and Dad.

It’s me now.

Lying over a pile of garbage

in the garbage can.

Wasted, thrown away.

I just can’t let them go that easily.

I am clinging

like the last peach

of the summer

on the highest branch.

Preferring to wrinkle and dry up in

the sun’s heat

rather than be picked

and eaten.

Out on the edge of things-

edge of comfort, politeness, legality, acceptability, of “what we do”,

there aren’t a lot of arms

holding you.

There aren’t a lot of voices

reassuring you.

Because you’re somewhere

no one’s ever been.

You don’t know.

And you know

you don’t know.

You are leaning, balancing over the edge

toes tingling, gripping.

Hoping to feel some security

about the place that’s here.

The world is burning behind you.

You will surely burn with it,

if you go back.

But it might be a slow burn, smoldering and singeing.

Jumping will be a death too.

You will be changed.

Your children will be changed.

It’s time to jump, or burn.

The swirling clench deep in the belly

wants to scream the walls down.

Help me!

Wants to panic and sob with wild abandon. And throw things across rooms with brick walls-

smashing, breaking, crashing, deafening, blinding, gasping.

This is too hard, maybe it’s a mistake, go back, fall back, fall apart, I can’t do it. Take it away from me. I don’t know how.

You become the gaping, yawning hole

opening over the edge.

How can you hold a hole?

How can a hole fall

into itself?

Looking inside my basement I find dirt, cobwebs, spiders, dampness, old things. Canning jars full of unidentifiable preserves on shelves to my right. A bare bulb lights up the washer and dryer and I smell laundry soap and mildew. The air on my skin feels icy-sharp, cutting. An old rug is rolled up beneath the shelves and boxes are stacked at the back. One of the top boxes has been opened and newspaper is caught mid-slither reaching for the floor. A high window above the laundry area shows ground level behind some camellias. I hear voices, just the music of voices without the lyrics, outside the window there. Humming. The camellias are in bloom. It is February. It’s just rained and I long to pack myself away in that open box and listen to things forevermore. I’ll smile to myself in my box and sometimes cry. Or tremble with fear for the girl being scolded by her father. I’ll see the dogs jogging up to the camellias and I’ll see them piss all over the window. I’ll sleep. It’ll be fine. Fine.

The wind is wildly throwing

itself through the trees,

and the streets.

And the trees, they are bending and twisting.

Peyote dancers feeling into the world

beneath the world.

The sound is like the ocean

slamming itself against the steady shore.

Then the wind seems to inhale.

Silence.

Just like when the water goes from noisy simmer

to boil.

For a moment it’s quiet.

Then the papers fly off the tables and

the cat hides under the bed.

I can see the gold finches clinging

tenaciously to the feeder.

My legs stretch out.

And I wonder

who knows I’m here?

]]> http://www.healingtowholeness.org/loneliness/feed/ 0 http://www.healingtowholeness.org/a-kind-of-lust/ http://www.healingtowholeness.org/a-kind-of-lust/#comments Wed, 02 Sep 2009 00:43:21 +0000 Kathleen MacGregor http://www.healingtowholeness.org/kathleen/?p=376

It’s August.

September’s on the way.

This is the time

when she weighs

herself down

with lists, classes, meetings

chores have-tos and

should-dos.

A kind of lust

Has come in.

The sea wants

to carry her away

to a foreign country.

With or

without her family.

With or

without saying

Good-bye.

With or

without coming back.

No thought of returning now-

only flight.

A kind of lust,

so hard to resist.

But resisted, oppressed.

Desire.

She doesn’t know why

it has to be this way.

Or at least why

it has been this way.

Part of her is already gone.

There is a vacancy in her

face and

in her body.

She is

turning, like the leaves,

toward the sinking sun.

The draw to follow him

down.

Down to the

south.

Italy, France, Spain

Or Africa.

There.

Where the sun

never stops kissing his Earth

kisses her to death.

Desire.

Desire to walk

down crumbling stone streets

wearing high heals

which click and echo off the

ancient, mumbling walls

lined with old women in black and

children who stay up late.

Desire to hold orange blossoms

in her hand

And feel her own dress

swing and brush her legs.

To hear the voices of the men

smoking on their apartment

balconies.

The music

drifting from somewhere

just ahead.

The smells

pressing in.

Heavy, thick lust.

To feel the men wanting her.

Desire for all of them.

To abandon all notions

of right and wrong or

consequence.

The half-asleep mistiness of all of it.

A far-away question

floats by,

She doesn’t

know

How this

will

turn

out.

Sometimes

I do nothing all day

but stare out the window

and watch the garden

standing still.

Occasionally shifting her feet

or scratching behind her ear.

A sigh.

A sigh.

A sigh.

You

who laid an aching arm

across my shoulders

encouraging.

Encouraging?

Your face

peering into mine.

Asking.

Was it you?

A park

in December.

Oak trees and chimney smoke.

Did you ever know

anyone so lost

as I was then?

Lost in plain sight.

When you’re lost

you’re a different person.

You’re a lost person

who’s awake and searching.

You notice things and

you talk to people

you’d normally ignore.

There are oracles everywhere

all along the street,

on the other side

of the counter.

Taking your money.

Handing you the change.

Telling you the truth

of the universe.

How to get home.

Whether the oracle sends silence,

curses or directions,

she tells you the way home.

Make a gift

of what the oracle tells you.

It’s all in the listening.

There are oracles everywhere.

Still, I don’t know where I’m going.

And I’m no longer lost.

It’s different now.

I’ve stopped pretending I know the way.

That there is a way.

There’s just the way I’m going.

And that could change any time.

Any time at all.

One oracle said,

If you get lost, just keep turning right.

When you get used to that,

try a left and see what happens.

In the murky bedroom
Of her mother’s house
Shadows, decayed,
Fill in the gloom.
Curtains drawn tight
Never reveal
Sunlight or storms.
Day or night.
Keep it all out.
Keep out the breath.
Keep out the vision.
The room so bad
It must be hidden.
Lest light come in
Ever unbidden.
Tacky floor
Sticky walls-
If Light saw this
He’d be appalled.
The filth of neglect-
Of habitual hatred.
The rooms repel.
Denial is naked.
Marriage gone-off
Long ago.
Never even a shop keep
To take it from the shelf.
Lovers attacked and eaten
By the deep living
Long-toothed eel.
Bones sunk to the bottom
Forgotten .
Forgotten.
Beyond recognition,
Cavities a slither
With parasites-
This is life.
This is life?
She believed in her condition,
Which taught the glamour
Of self-destruction.
Smoking and drinking,
Cutting yourself off,
You say yes to the devil.
Cut it off.
Take suffering away-
To fit in.
But what gets cut
That’s up to him.
It might be the pain
In your feet or head.
It could just as well be
Your joy or your bliss,
The memory of a kiss.

They are glad, now, to have you to come to.

You are not whole to them.

You are arms that hug.

A voice answering and asking.

You are eyes seeking God in everything.

They are glad to know you are there.

And when they have gone,

They will look back and say,

She never worked a day in her life.

She never had to make money.

But they didn’t know you before.

Didn’t know you when

You preferred to sleep in your car

Rather than get a job. A job.

A job was death.

A job was a blunt instrument

At the back of the head.

A job.

But for now,

They are glad you’re here making their home, making beds

Making dinner,

Recording the stories

And the story beneath all the others.

The record of what is happening that leads

To what they will say happened.

And this is what you want to do.

Payment is invisible or barely visible.

Who cares what currency they value?

What do you value?

I value what I have found here

In the rubble of family life.

There is so much here to build with!

Beautiful mosaics from broken colors

Reflecting the faces of those

Previously hidden family members.

My path is made for me.