Clearly
I am deep, I am complicated, I am misunderstood
I am realistic, I am dark, sometimes too scary for you
I am lost, so far away, in distant places and time, future and past
I am light, so carefree and fun, but only for brief moments can I last
When I speak so clear, straight from my heart, you just can’t see what I am saying
My breath wasted
I leave you confused
When I try to find the words, to make you understand what I am meaning
My thought vanished
I’m left unfulfilled
My heaviest thoughts I keep from you
Because I know you’re not strong enough
All my tears I try and hide from you
But sometimes I can’t, it’s just too rough
When my presence is gone you think that I must not care
But I’m feeling ’bout so many things, too much to bear
I just shut down, there is no more left of me to spare
We can look at the same thing but something different is seen
Please don’t be afraid to understand what to me it does mean
You worry that I am too weak and will fall apart
You think you are strong enough to keep me together
I worry you’re too tough to really perceive my heart
And I know your fears hold your mind just like a tether
So much does not need to be misheard, left unspoken
Clearly knowing me will not leave you hurt and broken
This is my longest poem to date. It is also my deepest writing. I don’t know? Maybe having a fatally ill child has made me process grief and loss more intensely than most people I know? I am really starting to think that I can not handle anymore grief and loss, that I’ve already reached my quota.
Fall is a really tough time for me. I am always caught off guard wondering why I am feeling kind of blue and then it dawns on me that it is the anniversary of my Dear Grandpa Miller passing away. The fall of 2015 was extra tough as mid November was also the one year anniversary of the worst text message I ever received and coping with my mom coming as close to death as humanly possible from some freak event called a car accident.
Mom was in the hospital for one month and it really shook dad up, he could not sleep haunted by the vision of mom. He was not driving or in the accident but seeing her unconscious on the pavement and then her coming to in terrible pain and uncontrollably shivering, well I can’t even imagine how horrible it was. And get this, it was right in front of the gate at the cemetery across the road from their house. Standing there absolutely terrified waiting for the ambulance to come all Dad could do is stand there as a human shield trying to block the bitter wind at the top of the hill for her. And of course there is always Duchenne hanging over my head and it is so hard watching your young son decline right before your very eyes. It just seems like all the people in my life shutdown any conversation that starts to get deep. I am unsure if they just can’t get deep, don’t want to be deep or are afraid of deep. I knew I was overdue for a purge and all these words just started coming to me. I thought I better start writing it down and ended up with the above poem.