Hearts Erased

I needed you today.

Something really bad happened
And I needed my best friend.

‘Cause we talk about everything
It’s simply what we always do.

I needed you today.

I am a wreck.

But you weren’t there.

Descending
Into an epiphany of nothingness
Disposable waste
I am pierced from within
The guts of my ancestors begging me back
Rotting heart, diced so nice
Filleted and on display for none
Falling fast, where nobody can hear me screaming.

Dissolve the toxins from your life
Remove that aging, insufferable cyst
Purge the cancer that eats at your marrow
Drive a stake hard into the vampire that sucks away at your soul.

Flush out the poison that has backed up your system
Gnaw off your foot in the trap that has bound you
Behead the snake that is coiled around you
Fly out the cage that has tried so hard to contain you.

As a woman, you are empowered
As a woman, you will not be oppresssd
As a woman, you will stand up
As a woman, you are fury and power.

You can and you will
You must, baby.

When you instigated that kiss, it meant the world to me
Like melting ice cream on the hottest summer day
Your mouth embraces mine and opens the gates of heaven
There is divinity most high in our passion.

I lack nothing when your lips are against mine
Every sweetness you have ever uttered to me is felt in our kiss
All the longing from the depths of who you are comes to the surface
And the entity of us only grows stronger.

No matter your level of dysfunctional thinking
I know you are in prime honesty with me
And literally nobody else
You keep your cards close, tight fisted
Misguided but pure
You’re a paradox of heartbreak
If only you’d focus on what’s truly right
Cut the fat and embrace what lifts you high.

“It’s easy to tell yourself it’s not that bad, and it’s really easy to look at your children while you are all sitting around the dinner table and tell yourself you will stay together to save them.

I’m speaking from experience here:
Staying in a marriage where there is no love is not saving your children. Not even a little bit. Yes, we know it’s going to disrupt and hurt our children if we split. And doing anything to disrupt and hurt them feels unnatural. So, we cling. We stay. We fight the good fight with their feelings and hearts at the forefront of our minds.

We cannot ignore a very important point here: When parents force themselves to stay together when aren’t happy, this is what damages the kids most of all. My husband and I started having problems when our youngest was four years old, and guess what? She knew.

Once I realized my marriage was not about my children, but about the partnership between me and my ex-husband, I was able to get really clear about why we should divorce so I could let my guilt go. We made vows to each other before our kids were born that we weren’t able to honor. Almost every one was broken.

We were in love once, made a beautiful family, but that love went away. We tried, but we weren’t able to get it back. We both deserve to find it again, and our kids need to see both of us loved in the right way. We knew it wasn’t going to be with each other, and trying to fake it for their sake was destroying us. It could have destroyed them, too.

Because we split, they see us getting along. They see us both feeling more at peace and living our best lives. They see us communicating better. They see us putting ourselves first which is setting a good example for them. There’s an impact on the kids when their parents divorce, for sure. I’m not arguing that. How can there not be? But what I’m saying is, if we stayed together for them and they found out our miserableness was for their sake, I truly believe that would cause a lot more harm than our divorce ever did.

It takes time, but the kids adjust to their new life; they adjust to seeing their parents happier for not being together. But they never adjust to watching the two adults in their house walk around unhappy every day.

Staying together for your kids is a bullshit reason to stay married. Stay together for you, separate for you, divorce for you, but not for anyone else. If you aren’t taking a stand for yourself and your happiness, no one else will, regardless of what you sacrifice for them.”

The greatest gifts bestowed to me
Are the three little loves of my life.

While I pondered other directions
God brought to me the title of Father.

My focus has only ever been these souls
To lift when they fall and to love with my all.

When one fell off her bike, I cradled her tight
Wiping her tears and mending her spirit.

When one was hospitalized yet again
I prayed by her bedside and held her hand through the nights.

When one felt she needed to become something else
I did all I could to be there, and love and accept her just the same.

To love unconditionally is with great patience and a tender heart
Abandoning anger or any unnecessary negative action.

Above all else, I am Father to the one’s that have taught me such grace
And here I will linger for the rest of my days.

I think there is a fine line between parenting “kids” under my roof who are going on twenty years of age and letting them do what they want. But this line is a bit broader considering their learning disabilities, and my legal guardianship and trusteeship of them. Am I instinctively not giving them free reign (“can I have cereal for a snack?”) because this is how it’s always been? Surely they are able to listen to their internal clock and go to bed when they are sleepy, so why do I announce it’s time for bed every single night? This is all uncharted territory for me, not to mention these young women as well.

We had a similar discussion of such topics just the other evening. I wanted to make it known that I want to respect them as the adults they are. I wanted to make it known that I still am in the role as their father and I always will be but I wanted them to know a few important things. Stuff like it’s okay to eat whenever they’re hungry, that they don’t need to ask. If they wake in the night and feel the desire for food then go for it, not that anyone does that in this household except for me. I wanted them to know that this is their home, the same way it is mine. These are all things I assume they understand but I felt moved to state it otherwise.

And with it, I wanted to make it known that I’m simply trying to help them. They’ll constantly ask if they can have this or have that, or can you make me such and such. I’ll, of course, say yay or nay but at this point in the game I wanted them to know that it’s not as rigid as they’ve always thought, at least not anymore. Same goes with brushing their teeth and hair, and taking their meds. These practices are non negotiable considering their importance and especially for my daughters but I’m wanting them to do them to their frequency and not be needing my reminders.

But there’s the juxtaposition. They need someone, more specifically me, to do that for them. And there’s the coughing. One girls coughing makes sense, it’s her now-condition, and it scares me to my core. My other girl had always had a cough and she’s the one that lies in bed hacking at night, also chilling me to the bone. Why am I faced with such illness and even worse… it’s not mine to bear, it’s theirs. We’re burdened by the minute.

Ultimately, neither of us are going anywhere soon and that suits us all just fine. This transition playing out before my eyes from children to adulthood is daunting but I think I’m doing alright. Maybe I can learn to ease up a bit and watch them further their independence because if ever there was a time to do it, it’s now. And as needy as they can be in regards to me, I feel important if it’s only just for them.

My heart weakens in the silence of our love
Feeling my despair from all sides
Desperate for your half walled world
Over this new serving of uninspired hell.

As you continue to muffle your feelings
I am emersed in unnecessary torment
Parched by your drought when you had just come back
You make me ache in places previously numb.

The lie detector of your heart is a tsunami of sound
Pummeling the make believe world you’ve made of dust
You writhe inside the way I writhe all over
Keeping at arms length our gorgeous saving grace.

Remember those times, baby
I was always listening
And no matter what we were saying
Whether loving, heated or in between
I would break into a smile
Whatever that was going on
I was just so in awe of you
I could never, ever get enough.

I have loved you incredibly so
Five minutes with you gave me wings
One glance from you solved my everything
And one of your kisses melted me whole
I will cherish the angles of your all for eternity
Giving everything up when you step onto my scene
Because all else fades away
You are all that I see.

Stop celebrating dysfunction
You’ve pretended far too much
And internalized way too long
You’ve swallowed enough hate to level a city.

Stop rewarding an asshole with perseverance
“Yes sir, treat me poorly. I want MORE!”
Run for your dear life
Never look back at the scum where you’re at.

I woke you from your sleep
You’re unable to go back
It’s why I always say there’s just one choice
Only one direction to go
You can’t reinvent or hide your compass
No more neutrality and no more going backwards
I woke you from your sleep
You are unable to go back.