thoughtsgather

“So, who did you play with today at recess?” I asked her.

No one, she tells me. She tells me she spent it in her own.

My heart sinks.

“Why didn’t you play with Leah or Lily?”

They ran ahead of her and didn’t wait, she tells me.

I have visions of her being left out. Naive to the games te other kids are playing on her.

“And what about Seamus? Why didn’t you play with him?”

He went to play with the boys, she tells me.

“So what did you do?”

She tells me she walked around on her own watching the other kids.

My heart sinks further.

“Are you on your own most recesses ?”

She tells me she is sometimes and sometimes she plays with her friends.

“Mommy, why are you asking me do many questions?”

And now I worry I have asked one to many questions.

“Did you want to be with the other kids?” I ask.

“no, sometimes I just like being by myself”

And I realize that was the question I should have begun with.

Another fish. Dead. I tell her at breakfast. Her father suggests that we try to keep it hidden and just get her a new one. I feel this is wrong, untruthful. I walk into the dining room where she is licking the peanut butter off her toast. She never eats the toast and I wonder why i just don’t give her a spoonful of peanut butter for breakfast. “I have some sad news” i say. She puts down the toast and turns to look at me. In that moment I wished we had simply gotten a replacement fish, but I have already started.

“your fish….”

And that was all that needed to be said. She walked into her room and saw her fish, not floating, but lying, at the bottom of the fishbowl. The sobbing came fast and fierce. I hug her. That night she and her dad come back with not one, but 6 new fish. He thinks this will buy us time.

I wonder

What makes a poet.

What makes a poem.

Do words

Need
To
Be placed
In a strategic
Or artistic fashion

Or tell stories of love and lost.

Or is the simple fact of the man
Sitting across from me
On the subway
Going to work.

His book about to drop on the floor
As his eyes close.

Or is it words
That
Mean nothing separately
But everything to-gether.

I believe rhyming is dated
And also highly over rated

But, what do I know
A poet,
I
Am
Not

I’m embarassed to admit this.

I dream of spending days in coffee shops, telling stories.

I dream of writing words day and night.

I dream that I am good enough.

That I am good enough and that people would read the words

And pay for the words.

Should this embarrass me.

I dream that this could be my life.

Painting pictures with words. Galleries, shared.

I sit across from the student therapist. The room is too hot and the chairs too paisley. The old pipes talk their secrets as i talk mine. Theirs are more interesting.

She states revelations I already knew. I say “oh yes, I have never thought about it in that way”. Of course I have. I validate her responses to me. And I wonder who is getting the therapy.

The darkness crept in.

And my girls saw me crying.

I tried to escape, I put my hair in front of my face and told them both I’d be right back.

I shut the door and lay face down on my bed. The sobs came fiercely. No suppression, I wanted them gone.

Footsteps outside the door. I breathe deep, healing breaths. I will be okay, I will be okay, I repeat to myself in whispers.

The sobbing and tears end. I look in the mirror, my face does not have the ability to hide the pain.

I open the door and they are both standing there.

“mommy crying” my two year old says.

“mommy’s fine” I smile and say to both of them.

My 6 year old says nothing. She wraps her arm around my middle and I kiss the top of her head.

“let’s go finish building with those blocks!”. My voice chipper and forced.

Maeve looks at me and smiles. We build castles together.

She says to me, “but you have been yelling at me all day!”

She is in tears in a crumbled ball on the freshly vacuumed rug.

But I haven’t been yelling at her all day. Yes, in that moment I did yell. Her whining of not being able to get dressed on her own was more than I could handle at that moment. I yelled. I called out her age. But I hadn’t been yelling at her all day. That was fact.

She said I had been yelling at her all day. That was her truth.

I look into your eyes and see a mirror reflecting back. As you begin your journey I think of the possibilities for you. I mourn for my possibilities. You stand before me lost in play.

Fiona, I say. Fiona.

I’m compelled to say these words to you that I have said before.

Fiona, you always be who you are meant to be. You love who you want to love, and you do what you want to do. Okay?

Your two your old grin meets me. Your eyes twinkle.

Ok mama, you say.

I hope if I say these words enough that one day you will hear them. That one day I will hear them.