How Do You Manage Alone

I am the fourth daughter to do it alone
Independence and survival are in my DNA
Only child to a single mother
Only granddaughter amongst the cousins
Only kid on my block
I have lived in comfortable aloneness most of my life
Do not believe I do not get lonely
I know how to remedy loneliness
Trusted family
Tribe
Are always a keystroke or "hello" away

I'd prefer to have a partner
To help me raise and support my children
But not at the cost of my independence
My independence is foundational in my peace
If I cannot retain my independent spirit
I cannot sustain my sense of self
I need a partner who walks alongside me
Who understands that I need to run in my wildness
Who does not try to domesticate me
Into something less than myself

Aloneness is not absence or lack
It is the space where I meet myself
It is the door to my Narnia
The place where unfettered dreams thrive
Where words waltz in ballgowns and tails
Where stories bloom from rich soil
Where I sit in conversation with discomfort
Where I sit in conversation with my gods
It is the garden of my delights
And it is as precious to me as air

How do I manage alone you ask
I understand that I'm never really alone
I'm as alone as I choose to be
I'm helped as much as I choose to ask for it
It is not as perfect or simple as these stanzas may imply
But the essence of my truth is here
Simplified
Distilled into a comprehensible version
Of my vast and complex reality
A demonstration of shifting perspective 
Being alone carries so much oppressive connotation
I choose to experience it as a necessary liberation
Allowing me to navigate life by my own north star
Inspiring me to never lose sight of myself again

-gws

I Loved Myself Plenty

I loved myself plenty
I spent so much energy on him
there was none left for me
But the echos of my knowing
The spark that was always the heart of who I am
Could not be extinguished 
No matter how hard he tried
And he raged against
My defiance to submission and subjugation
And when I could endure no more
I was done
I breathed my flame back to life
And I am once again its keeper
Ensuring it is fed and protected in any storm
I will not be dimmed or diminished again

Done

“I am done,” is the quietest, most power-filled sentence in a woman’s lexicon.

-gws

Friendship Garden

I am lucky to have cultivated a lush garden of beautiful, meaningful friendships throughout my life.  I am luckier, still, to be planted in the deep soil of my friends’ gardens where they shower me in love, and light, and their amazing company.  To exist in a well tended garden cultivates a gratitude so profound it can only erupt from me in joyful colors painted with hugs, laughter, and happy tears like sacred rain upon parched earth.

- gws

The Next Chapter

And so comes the end of the heaviest chapter
The plot twisted dramatically 
In the hands of an unreliable narrator 
Linear time fractured
Slowed
Ran backward 
Perspectives shifted
Creating more confusion than clarity

Muted colors of nostalgia dull recollections 
Emotional sharpness blunted
The hollow ache of a long goodbye 
Completed with the deliberate placement 
Of an arch-ending period.

The next act begins with a page turn
“THE NEXT CHAPTER” written atop it

-gws

“I love you”

Photo by Raphael Brasileiro on Pexels.com

You have said a lifetime's worth of, "I love you" in the last ten months
I remember that you rarely said it in the twenty-three years
When I needed to hear it like my blood needed oxygen
What am I to do with your, "I love you" now
Now that I cannot love you anymore
Oh! My heart still loves you
Still wrings drops of hope from itself
Hope hanging heavy from tear tracts
To be wiped bitterly away
Because there is no hope left
Hope is just a tether
Preventing me from moving on
From acknowledging the truth that 
The third body is dead and has been for a long time
Love's hope nearly destroyed me
Consumed me
My heart will not let me pry this foolish hope from her hands
So instead, I have to lock it away
In the dark, cold, empty cavity that is my chest
Heart unable to comprehend that I do this for our own good
It screams and howls in the echoing silence
"One last chance!"  
"One more time!"
"Maybe this time!  Maybe!  Just maybe!"
"I love you" manifests no magic here
"I love you" will not call forth a miracle for us
I still love you,
Too
But I HAVE to love me, 
MORE

-gws

Touching Grass

Touch the grass of your trauma 
If it helps you remember why you moved on
But do not root there
There’s nothing but poison in that soil

-gws

What I’m Thinking

What I'm thinking is:

This is hard shit.  
That sometimes grabbing that fact by the throat and screaming in its face is necessary from time to time.  
Sometimes sitting in the shadow of that truth is required when our spirits are tired and our hearts so broken.  
And when we're done, we rest.  We breathe.  And we rise and fight some more.  
Because we're mothers.

-gws

Harvesting

I plunge my hands
Into the dark soil
To harvest the fruits
Of gratitude into the light
It is practical work
Grounding work
Spiritual work
To nourish my soul
Drawing upon the root work 
Already deeply planted
I turn my face to the sun

-gws

Smoldering

I still hold the smallest flickering flame of hope
Smoldering painfully in my belly
I keep trying to stomp it out
Smother it
But it persists 
Despite the obvious futility of its existence
It will not listen to reason
Will not extinguish beneath showers of bitter tears
I must endure it
Ignore it
Until it gutters and dies on its own

-gws