A Look at 40

We watched the rain fall

Between the pine

Cruise control on 

Riding our side of the line

I was thinking it was beautiful 

The way the car glides 

Over a curvy county road

Thinking about the past few years

And the heavy load

I am the observer

Of what is unimportant 

Not much to do around here

Trying to forget what we can’t

We used to sit on the patio drinking

Until the cigarettes were gone

If any store was open

We’d probably stay up till dawn

Talking about the same old things

So much is different now

But the feeling's the same

Laughing about good times

Dreaming of change

I wanna move you 

With something so deep 

When I try to put my finger on it

The words come out cheap

You drive your dented in truck

Hauling your dreams

The mess inside 

Organically obscene 

Perhaps a metaphor

For seeking something more

But we just laugh about it…

And I remember and remember and remember 

Until I can’t remember at all

Swinging toward the sky

Close your eyes while you fall

And my face now

Tells a story 

A clue to my age

A look at 40

Innocence gone

Yet still naive

If you say it with a smile

I’ll probably believe

With these memories 

And a slow song I’ll sit

And we’ll just laugh about it

If you overfill a jar, no matter how hard you try, you can't put the lid back on

You can compress and shove and do anything to try and make it work

But it just won’t

I’ve come to realize the same goes with a person

You can only take so much

pain, anger, sadness, or whatever

There will always be a point where your ability to condense everything ends

when you can no longer push it all down

You cannot brush it away

It’ll build and build and build until it can't anymore

That pain is far worse and far more awful than any singular sensation you can push down

For a while, you can erase the feelings so that you almost feel okay

But you will realize, “okay” is so inescapably temporary

Because then the street lights blur, and it feels like everyone’s shouting as you pass them

You feel your pulse race and chest squeeze as it’s all pressing in

Like the jar has cracked and spilled, and all of its pieces are too small and far too scattered to collect and put back together

The ghosts of your mistakes and good mornings haunt your polluted mind and taunt you with everything you’ve tried to forget again, again

You are human, and human feels too much

The jar is always full, always overflowing, always spilling

You realize that those people you pass are not the ones shouting

It is you, you are shouting, it is you, you are shouting!

Yet you’re still in the streets, the lights are still blurred, and you’re still shouting

Inside yourself, at the universe, at the stars, at whoever must’ve cursed you to feel this way

And sometimes the universe answers back, and you swear it’s not all some big thing made up in your head, that this burden is not up to you, that you haven't made the bed

The voice tells you the hollowness is not always going to be there, that even the loudest feelings will become a controlled subject, that your cries won’t always be breathless and shaky

This is your jar, this is your body, this is your mind, this is the soul trying to make sense of the cosmos, and failing, and trying, and succeeding, and failing

You are human, and human feels too much

You tremble, your body aches, your poisoned lungs clench and burn, but still you march, still you pour everything you are onto those streets

Sometimes beautifully, sometimes ferociously, sometimes beautifully, sometimes ferociously

But always endlessly

And the jar still waits, always waiting for more, for everything, for the fullness of being alive, spilling, screaming into the dark, into the busy streets, into everything that is you and everything more than you

And the jar is still there, still full, still yours, and sometimes you pour, sometimes you tend, sometimes you share, sometimes you neglect, and it resents you, and you resent yourself, and still it is yours, still it is you, still you march and pour and tremble and breathe, and all at once it is endless and only yours to carry, it is you and it is everything more than you

I stop when I catch myself smile

because my sick brain believes that it will only be for awhile

To get hopes up is allowing yourself to look stupid

for when life doesn’t turn out the way you imagined it

A perfect beach I have found

with a cool breeze and a calming ocean sound

While everyone relaxes

I watch the tide waves waiting for something to happen

When will I become a chubby wife who has no luster?

Turning people into projects, a mother resented by my children’s father?

I fear putting dreams on the back burner

that someday the burner will only be cooking dinner 

That I’ll bear children whom I don’t share a name,

that my bet on love was a waste

I can’t hear my heart, I don’t think I ever have

always focused on what I would lack

Do I need therapy or is this an initiation?

That every girl goes through each generation

Committing to either path, would I truly let myself live it?

Am I an avoidant or am I a woman?

I don’t miss you,

I don’t miss talking to you,

Everyday about anything.

About everything.

I don’t like you.

I don’t like that I see you,

With every corner I turn,

In every face I look into,

I don’t mean to be rude,

But I am,

Rude about who you are,

What you are, what you’ve done,

What we were. 

I say I don’t like you,

And that may be true,

But the reason why?

Because I’m still that girl,

Shamelessly in love,

Waiting for something,

That will never be.

And truth be told,

I do miss you,

I miss calling you, feeling all my troubles,

Melt away at the sound of your voice,

Laughing at your jokes,

Falling in love with who you are,

Wanting you to fall in love with me,

But I wouldn’t tell you that,

I wouldn’t even tell you I miss you.

This is a house, not a home.

The creak in the stairway

is not from the patter of excited little feet

running and giggling through hide and seek.

That creak is full of shame and guilt

as you sneak away from us

with a desperate sigh.

Three sets of silverware

scrape against plates—

instead of four.

Conversation halts

with a sideways glance

to see if it is you

arriving home once more,

followed by a tight, sad smile

when it never is.

We hold our breath upon your arrival—

not with excitement, but silent dread,

because we know how the house will feel

with you in it.

The painted walls and new furniture

are just a bandage.

The closer you get,

the more cracks appear.

You have broken us.

The glass is shattered,

the pieces so small

I’m not sure they will ever

fit back together.

The glass didn’t shatter all at once,

It caved in slowly.

Day-by-day, piece-by-piece.

Something you could ignore

as long as you didn’t gaze directly at it 

That’s how most collapses begin.

  Not with noise.

   but quiet compromise.

A hairline crack

 you trace with your thumb

 and still call it nothing.

I seal it still, hold the pressure back

A closed window is all I’ve ever known.

 I bear the weight of all that may give,

 the bare betrayal of things once certain.

 as the air tastes of wind and resignation,

 I am tired

 of being afraid,

 tired of making myself small

 inside a home I could not control.

The fracture fissures fully,

splintering silently,

light licks at every edge,

dust dances in delicate drifts,

air bursts into the room, unforgiving

until it feels as if it’s no longer safe

yet on the inside, there is strange solace

 a mercy in being reached

  where you are no longer intact.

And within the inexorable illumination,

 The shards shimmer

  Catching a cadence in chaos,

  turning jagged geometry into grace.

The room refracts and then reforms

 into something I could never see

  before the glass broke through.

My room is not ruined;

  the windows are only open.