Rebirth

I am transitioning. 

 

motherhood: 

 

milk-coated moments 

soft, opaque, all love and light. 

 

smoke-filled lungs

choking on small scenes 

wading blindly

 

I started small.

 

one additional heart 

five years, holding his 

small, sturdy body in my arms

feeling it bloom, all limbs. 

 

his hands, still new, only larger now. 

he rests them on my growing belly

his brother

 

his small mouth talks of protection. 

 

I hold him as I always have

with my whole self

days, minutes, hours before

I split myself in two.

Rituals

Enter a caption

the day is a series of catchphrases

 

the sun rises and falls 

 

casts the same judging glare 

through her living room window

 

she’s forgotten what the air feels like

when it catches and holds in her throat

like all of the words she’d tossed into 

a jar before she dared to try them on for size

 

somewhere her daughter 

cries in unpredictable patterns 

quiet, loud, a siren’s wail

 

barely breathing but never more alive

 

life thrums at the edges of her doorstep

 

she counts the crows huddled 

along the power lines

and steps back inside

connections

mother folds the rug back 
while father sweeps

mother stirs the pot 
while father fixates
on a crack in the ceiling

 anything but the way
my shoulders jackhammer
while i am begging him
in some devastated tongue

 to see me in some light, any light

they say a mother’s love knows no bounds
but what happens when your own mother
is so broken she cannot lift a hand
to see the way it looks so much like your own?

i am screaming with my mouth shut
and i’ve run out of bandages
to keep my bones from breaking
in one fragile swoop like some cheap trinket

i am grasping at straws made of sand
they turn to dust in my grasp
like this mirage that tries to
tell me i have a family

i kneel behind my son in damp grass
wrap both hands around his waist
point at whatever wonder the day is bringing

and i think: i’ve done this, haven’t i?
i’ve been on the other side of this
hands around my waist, so small
somewhere in the fog of another life.

poetry

(http://menoevil.deviantart.com/art/Whispering-wind-379336368)

 

you ask how I’m managing

but you cut your ears off

 

years ago

 

fingers smooth as

tree bark touch my wrist

 

there are daisies where your

eyes should be

 

you’re all I write about –

did you know this?

 

don’t be flattered

 

it’s easier to

write about misery

than it is to

write about love

 

to write about love

is to try slowing the

beating of your heart

to match the pace of your fingers

 

like holding a moth

in cupped hands

Looking Back…

Hi!!! ::wipes dust off of blog::

I hope everyone is well. I’ve been writing, writing, writing…but secretly. I am trying hard for a chapbook, have been lucky enough to read at TWO poetry events in the last few months, and have also had two pieces accepted by publications (both forthcoming). I am feeling very creatively blessed at the moment, and am so excited to share those poems with you when they are released.

I’m stopping in to share a piece (I was fortunate enough to have Freshly Pressed) I wrote back when I was big and happy and very pregnant. My son will be two this Friday, and I am a big ball of emotion right now. What a whirlwind it’s been since he entered our lives. I couldn’t ask for a better life. He is the best thing that has ever happened to me and I am proud to be his mama.

 

Here’s a link to that piece I wrote before I got to meet that precious boy: a poet to her son

Wishing you all well.

 

xoxo,

Nicole Marie

mother is a snake

[https://www.artmajeur.com/en/artist/arvydas-butautas/collection/selected-artworks/1503886/artwork/egg/7916323]

and I am flailing for cover

done up Easter egg bright

she can find me by barely

trying, I am just too passionate

 

and yet she goes.

 

someone else can do it

snakes always say

no time to talk about feelings.

 

my bones crack and

suddenly there is sky

 

I crane my neck

for a better look

call

 

mother, mother

 

but only the clouds roll in.

 

family dinner night

(https://www.pinterest.com/pin/321796335845627099/)

 

husband hides in kitchen

with our baby son stirring

the same pot for therapy.

 

sauce is sauce is still sauce

bubbling, burning at the edges

 

I am tangoing in our living room

in some other-world with my family,

but what does that word mean: family?

 

not elbows on the table passing

baskets of warm bread, butter

coffee on, television off, talk

heavy with plans for the new year

 

those are thoughts for daydreams.

 

my son drinks milk from a bottle

and I am kneading our livelihood

nearby, adding sprinkles, making shapes

 

only my husband sees, smiles.

did she (part III)

(http://www.diskursdisko.de/2010/08/jakob-wagner-vertical-woods/)

 

clasp cold hand

over cold hand

over mouth

 

fingers like

branches

search for the

telephone but they are

catching on all the edges

 

and we are

unraveling

unraveling

un

rav

el

ing

.

 

did she (part II)

(http://www.vol.at/allerheiligen-das-leben-neu-feiern-2/4132336)

a pink sun rises and her heart

beats in rhythm with the coffee that is

drip, drip, dripping in the kitchen.

 

she is warm, she is unknowing

still for minutes more, one foot

dangling casually from bed to floor.

 

someone puts the bacon on,

fat cracking fireworks from the stove

while news drones on from the television.

 

did she notice the birds

in their perfect V formation

ripping across a November sky?

 

slip the back door open just

a bit more, the dog, burly as she is

squeezes through and runs, runs, runs.

 

I’d guess they don’t look down,

from way up there it’s all just

noise anyway, it’s all the same

 

all the same.

Death is:

(https://weizhugyo.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/tumblr_mrwvv0fmoz1rknybpo2_500.jpg)

a toddler dizzy spinning on the

kitchen tile, yelling out to the abundance of

silence in the room, challenging with the sound of

his own excited voice he is a startling comedic relief

 

death is food: pies, cakes, donuts drowning

in sticky chocolate stuffed with velvet creams,

coffee sizzles nearby like a waking spouse

hoagie slices stacked in potent sculptures

 

death is love

family, friends, acquaintances even

hugging every wall and every worn cushion

thrown about the kitchen, living room, hallway

spilling over to the back porch, front porch

standing in doorways with hands in pockets, listening

 

death is a deep breath

 

pull it all in,

let it all out and

 

somewhere in the distance

a city is crumbling.