National Poetry Month III

Treasure Your Grief

Not like a piece of jewellery kept in a box

but a scar across your face

a house plant blooming where sun

glares through a window.

Go back to that time—

the sunny afternoon in the park

you didn’t question

your feelings sweeping you out

from childhood to another’s body

so close it enters like a possession

a desire that doesn’t name itself

cut by fear

this is how women are destroyed

and you run away

shut down the portal to pleasure

as you will do again and again.

Go back to the image you hold onto

the someday promised, this or this

the girl who gives because she feels

the movie star everyone wants but can’t have

the radiant flesh, the brilliant idea

all yours if you play your cards

right not wrong. Right not left. Right not alone,

starving or battered.

New dove, shapely, winged and wise, goddess poised

on the edge of a mountain in the clouds

ready to jump or fly to eternal glory

shattered by all the missteps, mistakes and failings

the undeniable proof of your unremarkable humanity

your place in the anonymous family

and all the ways you have been let down or built up

washing the cloth of invincibility.

You’ll dream of long corridors searching for a baby

taken at birth to find she was never yours

and in the mirror no tragic victim looks back at you

no Cinderella or Joan of Arc.

Grief is not loss but inheritance, your fire,

your form. Grief is the callback to play yourself

with your sweat, your fear, challenged by desire

to answer the breaking Earth as though she were a heart

or some other organ, her blood rushing through

your own veins. As though you were yourself

a mind created to save her and after all these years

you learn the only thing you can be sure about

are the many opportunities you threw away.

There are no happy endings.

There is struggle. There is gratitude.

And there is silence.

(Infinite Power, Janet Vickers, Ekstasis 2016)

For those who find Christmas painful.

Some thoughts for those who cannot enjoy the season.  Those who are still grieving a lost one - my heart goes out to you as you bring out (or in) the tree and can't bring yourself to decorate it because the grief overwhelms you and instead of making you happy you are struck by how locked outside you are feeling, like the little match girl with your nose against the window.

Or how focusing on choosing gifts for others seems so superficial and shallow even though you always enjoyed it in the past.

Or, if you are living in poverty and you can't spend money you haven't got, on presents for the most vulnerable in your family - how it just makes your situation more acute, And the thing you can't ignore is that anger sitting there like a stubborn goat.

Or, you recall a past Christmas where there was trauma - a relative that assaulted you or someone you love. Or a relative that drank beyond their ability to know what they were doing and the rest of the family spend the day walking on broken glass trying to avoid the elephant. 

Or, an unexpected break up after all the preparations and anticipation you put into the day.

Or because you do not identify as Christian and were excluded from these holidays. The memory of being left out made you feel like you didn't belong.

Whoever you are, wherever you live, I wish you good books, perhaps lots of sleep, or whatever it is you need most - a supportive and empathic family.

Crisis centres across Canada: http://www.partnersformh.ca/resources/find-help/crisis-centres-across-canada/