Hospital, a series: Poetry

You can't kiss poetry

you can't rock poetry to sleep

Give me my son

Hospital, a series: Why

to 

be a punk teenager

learn how to walk

start talking and say mama

teach you to read

hold your kids

to 

be your mama when you're angry and angsty

cheer on your soccer games 

hug me when you're home from school

make me and dad laugh

be a big brother, meet your siblings

draw with sidewalk chalk and jump on the tramp, play with the neighbor kids and have a crush on one of them,

feel sunshine warming your skin, go to lake Powell, surf the ocean with your dad, taste fresh coconut milk, have a Christmas, read a good book, travel the world with grandpa, serve a mission, 

let me take care of you while your throat's all sore from these tubes --

There's so much, buddy. So many reasons why.

Hospital, a series: What

we want him 

we want him 

we want him 

we want him 

we want him

we want him

we want him

we want you

we want you 

we want you 

we want you 

we want you

We want him, Heavenly Father. We want him.

we want him

this is from when you almost died

when I look at you I see the future

(hear the hospital alarms from last week

but) see the future, 

you're 

learning how to bike

proud of dad and baby brother

love me (mama) too, hugging me so tightly

a kid, coming home from school, a punk, so handsome

I'm holding my grandkids, you're quite the man and 

I've always been proud of you 

son

I 

see

you 

the future I almost lost.

I almost lost 

in that emergency room on a Sunday night -- I'm hiding in the family waiting room. 

Sobs.

"Life is beautiful." a stray thought, strange that Sunday

pain and fear and surreal a closed door and a seat or two, dad's with you in the other room and I'm broken down. white tiles. white tiles and a sign saying not to leave (don't leave baby, don't leave)

they've probably seen it before, the hospital workers. I'm just another mom. 

Maybe lots of moms wait there with their hair crazy and eyes all puffed up, faces red, tears running, noses blowing.

I don't think I want you to read this someday,

so let me not tell you just this. The moment of realizing you, my baby boy, might be dying, might be about to. That pain is an experience in my chest and it 

feels

can't breathe

insides shredded like costa vida pork

dark, dark, dark

downward dragging at the bottom of my throat and 

terror

can't be scared by anything else because this ^ is real

could I ever have another kid if you ended like this--?

(panic, pain, terror, tears)

no room for thought but I started bargaining

built a fire inside and told God so much that I wanted you, and I was 

pleading with you telling you about life and how it really is worth living (even though it hurts and scares) and how if we have any say we really want 

you, love

my baby boy

we really want you, if we have any say death is exotic but no we don't want it, we want you you you you and we love you baby boy and somehow, I don't know why, not because of my bargaining, you stayed with us.

in those moments I would have done anything for the chance to wake up all night to a crying baby, to change your diapers, for toddler tantrums to consume my days--

bliss. 

Buddy, we got a second chance. You and me and your dad. some people don't. 

thanks God. thanks buddy. 

gonna try do right. 

gonna think about those other mamas whose babies didn't stay.

gonna put down my phone and snuggle you.

gonna not be so afraid. gonna cry some more, probably. 

now I'm in our living room again and you're napping. and when you wake up, I'll hug you real tight.

Vitamins

and when you close your eyes I dream.

About yesterdays, tomorrows,

Acres of land 

And your dad and I, still making each other laugh.

I will always be holding you close to me.

Close like mama read me a story, 

Close like I will always kiss your hurts away

Close like this:

Your little tired body is melting against my mama one 

and i thaw brilliantly

You and me we 

are mine

Forever

Memories I curl round my fingers and take in each morning and evening with water, twice a day,

Dreams bloom into irises and 

convert

My hesitations Into fields of flowers 

tall enough to cut and take to all the neighbors, there are enough for the whole street and baskets besides

And I am smitten by motherhood.

Dreams that fill me with pictures, 

so 

many pictures books full and years full and we are laughing and teasing and loving in 

these pictures.

I want them all. 

And we’ll grow up with the grape vines, on our acres 

the peach trees will grow old

And you’ll have siblings to spare and 

I see

Happy.

(The kind that spills so easily over the backyard fence you can’t help but put hands in pockets and smile-sigh)

One-dimple smile, yours

You’re laughing at their dog playing fetch while I’m 

Wild on my insides,

A true dreamer

Fantasizing on family happiness and how 

Vitamins

You are mine

sat on the playground slide for an hour

I am always listening to the wind am always listening to the wind

It tells me about trees mostly
How long it takes to breeze through branches

Tells me about family mostly 

kids playing, frisbee hitting fence, dog chasing

I listen and I hear my thoughts 
Honey, she says, taste the honey and cheese and jam she whispers — peach jam—

and the olives and the fresh baked and

the picnic blanket 

hear this, 

she tells me it was there once.

I am always listening to the wind
she rambles
Breathes long low loud longingly
melodies

each tree a different note and when she reaches my face it is the most gentle and low of all

so fiercely gentle

she closes my eyes and drips them salty

God must have sent this wind
In a roundabout sort of way

I am listening to the wind and it drips honey into my heart 
And hugs me
--tired me--

I am listening to the butterfly’s flight 

busy patterns i

Listening to the birds
crickets
to the tremor of a tall shoots of grass getting shook whenever I hear those leaves blow against each other
An together we listen to the 

wind

Listening to god

The days slip by 
Abundantly as rain
He breaks my heart. But without him I wouldn’t have a heart to break. 

and so I am always listening to the wind, him too

he in his plane, i on mine

nomad this

Sept-Oct 2022

There is poetry in these days but I don’t write it. In the wake sleep wake pattern of long nights with our crying son. In the sniffles of a sick baby and the raspy breathing and my mama heart clenching. There is poetry in this move, in the uhaul passing through hill country and purple flowers and 20-second rain showers, taking us to the beginning of the rest of our lives but far away from family and home. 

There is color in the newness. In this town’s railroad tracks and our mouths numb from eating too-spicy food again and the green humidity and the red mosquito bites and our cream floor tiles and Williams shrieks and laughs when kaleb tickles and kisses him on the couch. 

We are waiting in the in between, we are new to this town, we are asking for help unloading our truck, we are learning the right temperature for our thermostat in humidity, we are buying tennis rackets and eating more lasagna than we want.

We 

Are

Time is passing in a funny way and it’s been two years of marriage 

And five years since home from the mission and 

seven years 

since done with high school and I will be 26 and I forget to write in my journal now.

I grew up.

Got too big for the playground now I play with my baby boy on the ground and stroll on long walks around the neighborhood.

I listen to the school kids on their recess break and I puzzle that was not just yesterday anymore and my soccer team is all married and some are already the parent on the sidelines with the orange slices. 

I look around this Texas air and the light falling in through the window onto tall green plants and I am looking for the poetry in my life, I'm cultivating it and the Texas growing season is funky so I don't know when it'll come, but I will harvest. I will harvest powerful words and feelings and lessons learned through moves and separations and growing up and I will be richer than I ever thought 

with my baskets and arms full of 

(mosquito bites & burp cloths & moving boxes & my husband &)

this. 

MIL is watching hallmark

I am not a hallmark movie

my house is messy, I don't brush my hair and I purchased foundation for the first time for my wedding

I am married to a man who is not Prince Charming 

(and I’m not cinderella)

and sometimes we go to bed angry

and sometimes I'm tired at the same time he is 

and it hurts.

"love is meant to be an adventure"

is it?

Love is quiet, a slow gentle hum that is 

sometimes sad

sometimes breathtakingly simple (and I cry happiness)

sometimes so big I could share it with the world and have leftovers

sometimes hurts like 

my ankle,

staying home Saturday and Tuesday and today 

laying in bed at night angry, crying

and it is also precious like

Willy (chubby knuckles fussy hours left-cheek-dimpled-squinting-eyes laugh) 

kitchen swing dances

gardening at sundown

My life is not always Christmas 

drenched in romantic moments and background holiday music

I have not arrived at happily ever after

take a bath in some authenticity

hear the fights

touch the tomato stems

take the fall and still trust your husband 

laugh with your baby boy

stay up through the night with that baby boy

pack up and move

struggle with your mom

learn over years to love yourself, really honestly love who you are

I am living the human experience

and it is 

full.

when

(written March 17th) 

Day four. 

Day four, waiting for your day one. 

month 9, waiting for breath 1.

year 25, year 25, rows of little socks (with sheep, and geese, and little bear faces) in the top drawer and stomach cramps telling me we're getting closer to our first years as us with you.

day four, waiting for your day one. 

day four practicing Deux Arabesque, wistfully thinking about playing it as I'm in labor with you, but our downstairs neighbors will probably be sleeping and we’re still on

(monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) 

day four thinking it’s our last day before your first day

Day 4 of waves rocking you closer to us

Day four, waiting for day one

looking left

look left.

he's driving, we're passing malls from freeways, dark through the window and in the car and I'm frozen looking at his face.

There's a feeling in the car. There's a feeling when I look left.

The feeling is spreading warmth in my chest, I feel it in my face and my hands, the warmth, and there's a tingle on the rims of my eyes and a pleasant tightness behind my eyes and this is part of how the moment feels. Its overflowing.

We sound like car-at-night sounds. Passing cars, music from a phone/bluetooth (I don't remember which song), he's probably talking or singing along,

and I am filled with this feeling and the feeling of wealth. abundance. complete bliss. This is wealth. He loves me. He is good. I love him. We are here. These moments are passing and we'll be parents soon.

For now, it's just me and him. I'll look back to this forever. 

These will be brief days that went so quickly and we'll never have back.

We'll have good things ahead, better. 

But this, is so good. It tastes like the sweetest flavor I know, to be here tonight in this car, me and him, long drive home, looking left.