Lonely Rosie

Hadley told me something today. She said that today at recess she did not play with the other children. Today she did something else. She told me how she walked around the tree singing songs to you. She took my hand when she told me and looked at me and smiled. Her smile was genuine, so I know that her songs must have been. I worried for her a bit. I don't know why. She was doing what she wanted. Just the same, she is my baby too, and I don't want her to be alone. That feeling is one I am quite versed in. Everyone leaves no matter what. I get caught up in the changes that people go through. Your sister is so like me, but she is so much more confident. For that I am grateful.
What did she sing to you, Frost? She wouldn't tell me her lyrics. Secret between the two of you I suppose. That makes me happier than you will ever know.

Night, night Frost
Mama loves you.

The Old Bathroom

This morning I was thinking of the way my mom used to put her hair up on both sides when I was little and we lived in a different town. I decided I would be like the old her today. I used different clips than she did of course. Hers are long gone. I remember watching her get ready for work from my room, the bathroom was right next to it. I remember the wicker shelf that we kept toiletries on. Long gone now. I remember her leaning into the mirror, checking the pattern of her face. She still does this. I remember the cast iron bathtub that I fell on when I was 10. I still keep the memory of the blood gushing from my nose. But the claw feet of the tub are long gone. The bump remains. I remember bits of the wall paper. Old-timey ad campaigns. Torn away long ago. I can trace the Moorish arches of the antique gas heater over and over again. White and red hot, the ceramic radiants made me wonder about far away places before I ever knew that there was a land named Morocco where windows look like sharp petals seeking out the sun. Those pieces long ago became dust. I remember the piece of me that was washed away in that bathroom. My baby tooth, I don't know which one, whirled away down the drain of the sink as I prepared it for the tooth fairy. That night I left a note of pleading and explanation in its place. The money, tooth, and note are all long gone. Now I remind your sister to cover the drain with a towel before her tooth becomes lost along with mine. Everytime a tooth falls out we remember my mistake together. I did not like the style of the bathroom floor. I am glad that it is long gone. The bathroom had two doors with old handles, I remember the sound of them closing and opening. I don't remember knocking then. My sense of urgency is long gone. I can wait Frost.
These things gave me memories. These things left my life. I don't know if these things gave me happiness or not. They've just become things that I have stashed away even though time tried to trick me into thinking they were long gone. Time isn't always so crafty.

Night, night Frost
Mama loves you.

Birth Stones

We walked away from the uneven coast,

and fell upon a trap of splintering forest.

The most we watched that day

the dapple-down sea.

that could forgive our face

and just walk away.

And now the meteor tears at my cool skin.

It tells me lies,

It says to go and jump in.

Into the wish that we would no longer give.

Into the treetops, through the chlorophyll's grid.

Back on the ground.

Back on the wall.

Back on the red, crisp blood

Discovering all.

All of the motion and the forced ocean's face.

All of the stop an go, and all of the haste.

I take it with me

til I can't make a mark.

Can't set the pace,

can't hear the morning's soft dark.

She called me back to her

with lights and with wings.

She told me just to sit and she would bring,

to me and to the world just what we need.

That liquid heated by the heart of a seed.

I had a needle and it wanted to sew.

Sew through the afterthoughts, but not through the glow.

It wanted mending.

It wanted no holes.

And in doing so

I lost my own breath.

My soul with it was washed

and hung in the sun.

Just like the shadow

of my topaz blue son.

Crashed and some words

Mommy's got that emptied out feeling again. Like the cold open chest cavity feeling that I can never cut away. I can't fill it. I've tried. The wide open sky is too elusive, even when the clouds are heavy with rain. Moonbeams dance around far too skillfully for my loneliness to catch and use them as a mask. Conversation doesn't stitch up my wound, I say the wrong thing and the sutures I attempted fall out. Sometimes little trickles of pleasure seep into me, but they escape by the end of the night. I never go to bed with the hope I used to feel for the tomorrows I have stocked up. That is where my crashed open chest heaves. Night-time is supposed to hide our flaws. My night-time flays them wide open. I must shine like the moon in the dark, all exposed for everyone to see. Clouds rush up to cover me, but the waves of my sorrow creep around them. Over and over again I try to remedy my soul. Over and over again something tells me I can't. I don't want to be a display for people to wonder at anymore. I just want to be a woman again.

When you're lost,

see how lucky you are.

So long. So leave.

Don't you like when you're free?

and young enough to be King.

Only she can seal your coffin shut.

Don't you hurry to speak.

Once a wise owl had watched

As you walked in your sleep.

And your crash can be healed.

Night, night Frost

Mama loves you.

Nine Months

I saw moon-rays tonight. The light pressed through the clouds, which seemed the silhouette of wings. I stood in the minutes disguised as hours, unmoving and tear-stained. My lips called out the only name I felt might hear me in the dark in the middle of the country road. I called out the name "Daddy". I whimpered the name over and over. "Daddy, show me why." I knew his voice once upon a time, so I tried to listen for it. I stood in the street, no headlights came to interrupt the soapy glow. On the flat open surface I felt closer to the moon, I felt that my questions were more likely to be answered there. The moon has seen my mistakes, the moon has pierced my heart, the moon has curled my smiles. The moon has been many faces to me, tonight, Frost, on the day that you would have been 9 months old, the moon was my Father again. I was looking for his protection, his guidance. I was nailed to the blacktop, I would not move until something was given to me in return for my questions. Not an answer, just something that wasn't only a trick of the eye. I asked where do you go? why don't any of my dead people get to show me something of themselves? why don't I get a visit? why does this happen? and what have you become? Nothing. I stood longer, looking to the constant tumble of lightning opposite the moon. There were electricities all around me. I tried to feel them to become more aware. To tune into the things I thought I had been missing. Nothing but pretty cloud shadows and pops of dull reddish light. I had to go at that moment. I walked back toward the house, toward the unnatural light. The house behind me, not my own, in which we believe we have glimpsed the spirit of a man walking a burdensome path. A ghost, more than three people have caught striding out of the corner of their eye. I wondered then, when I thought of the ghost man, if maybe you had been caught up in his path, maybe he grabbed you out of spite, perhaps out of duty. Did our little spot in the world have a Divine purpose? At that, a coyote made its presence known, its howl was deep and soothing not haunting. I was thankful, I was relieved, all of my tears had gotten me somewhere. I had been heard! I had my answer. And what I took it to be was that we go back to the Earth. We belong to its energy, no matter our plans. This is where I find you. In the trees where the coyote hides. In the coyote's throat, longing to escape. In the moonshine that drives the coyote's frenzy. And in my tears that take their salt from the sea. You move in the tides and the pull of the moon, you are all around me. You are the connection to the breath of whom some call God. Through you I will listen, through myself I will hear. You are my gift. You are my place in the world.
Night, night Frost
Mama loves you.

Skipped Pages

Her bookshelf bows with the weight of words. The middle constantly sags, no matter how the tombs are rearranged. Rich texts are put on the ends, light reading sits in the middle. No matter, the wood drags itself down. It needs some sort of support. It needs some boy stories. There are a few that are entertaining to all, but no youthful, masculine wit exists there on her shelves. Should I remove Alice in Wonderland and slip in Robin Hood? What would your favorite be? Treasure Island? I don't know, I never read it. I wonder what we would have read together. Which hero would you have imagined yourself to be, Frost? Harry Potter or the clever Fox from Aesop's Tales? Maybe the Tortoise who won the race. People sometimes become their stories. Since you couldn't be here, maybe I should make you into a story so that you can be known and take your place upon a shelf with characters who lived the most exciting lives ever to be made up. If a Genie can come out of a lamp, you can be reborn.

Night, night Frost
Mama loves you.

Poem

Drawing

A pile formed in a corner,

there it was before you.

It was left, and it was not gorgeous,

it still is.

You are not.

The remains of my thoughts

heap up and become furniture for the dust

to rest its weary bones.

Why couldn't I become a rocking chair instead,

to ease your cries and random plays?

My baby has gone.

I eek out in slumber,

and feel for fleshy, soft futures

so quietly stripped.

Morning arrives, as it has for years,

only now, hope is not its companion.

I weep for their separation,

and prosper in the lines

drawn between wishes and doubt.

Smudged out by the back of my hand,

traded for the charcoal's solid voice,

A line, made so deliberately,

Lost too easily.

My hands hold the back of my neck,

trying to force a truth.

One I can't make on paper.

One I can't find in words.

A truth taken.

A perfect line.

The Green Oval Rug

I have a floor, a wooden floor, a carpeted floor. I'm looking at the reflection of it, at the soft of it. I see what it is missing. A baby crawling, a baby falling. Sitting up and reaching for the other baby things on my floor. The wood grain in the planks ring around and make stripes. There is no ring-around-the-rosie. I don't get to dance while holding a baby this time. Your sister and I had so much fun doing this. She would squeal and I would laugh and dip her until the fun of spinning took over. We made up songs for eachother, sang them loud when no one else was around. Today is the kind of day that I would have done those things with you. I'm missing you today. I don't have anything else to do. I try and say to myself that I have plenty to keep me busy, that I need to get this or that finished before some imaginary deadline. But really all I need to do is spend the day playing on the floor with you.
Night, night Frost
Mama loves you.

Interruptions

Sometimes all I do is worry. I like to pretend that I am not, so I make jokes and watch people laugh at my voices. Me laughing with them is a cover. I do it until it doesn't work anymore. It's like changing sides in my sleep til I can get back to the good dream I was having, it never works. The dream is always changed. There is an interruption. The first time I hear a song is always better that the second. I hate it when a song has a very promising beginning and just ends up being so disappointing. That's what I'm doing right now, I'm trying to find a song to match the day. One I haven't heard before, one where the musicians have captured the moment for me. So far, no one has. The beginnings are close, but then I realize that the song's creators must have been having a different day than me when they wrote the song, so I just haven't gotten a match yet.
There was just a loud sound in the house, I should take the time to go investigate it. I don't want to, I'm angry with the sound for interrupting my thoughts. I feel like I've been interrupted quite a bit since I was born. Sometimes I talk myself into believing that the interruptions are what I was looking for. I've given hours to looking at leaves and blossoms with blemishes. I've spent minutes wondering at the anatomy of a crumpled pillow. My eyes have dwelt upon to shadows of my mirrored face for years. If I had all those times back, I would spend them on recognising that you were faltering inside my womb. I would find the evil twist in my body and will it to unravel. Why didn't I have that power? Why didn't the beginning of you dying interrupt my day before you were totally gone, Frost? I couldn't feel my own baby perishing, but I can pick a butterfly from a spider's web before the poison sinks in. I don't understand. The plans I made for myself as a child have all gone away.

Night, night Frost
Mama loves you.

Nostalgia For What Can Never Be

There hasn't been anything new for a while now. Nothing that I have learned. I haven't used my time wisely. I am just following the days as I always have. I am here.
I watched our cat listen to the season change yesterday. He heard the first howls of Autumn's wind through a tiny space in the window. His ears rotated toward it before any other part of his body. His head followed at the second whistle. His eyes grew larger. He is just now a year old, this is the first fall he will remember. He is taking it in and adding to his pattern. As the wind continued to serenade him, he forced his legs down into the bed, lifting his torso, and padding across to the window. He watched until he was satisfied that the change would not disturb his world too much. Then he licked his paw with acceptance and returned to his warm spot on the bed's farthest corner. Curled into a contented shape, his new discovery only showed itself in the occasional twitch of the ear and squint of the eye.
I wonder if the cat was amazed by the changing of the world? He didn't show it the way I know you would have, Frost. I know that your little eyes would have questioned the wind's whoosh, and I would have given you the words for it. I would have said "The wind is blowing kisses to the trees", and we would have watched the leaves dance and drift to the ground. Your sister would have brought you the brightest orange leaf for you to crunch in your little hand. I would have made it disappear like magic right before your little mouth could find it. Hadley would have made jokes in the raked piles for you to laugh at, and the next year you would repeat them to her, when you were old enough to run and crash into one of childhoods' greatest treasures. Your Daddy would have held you up to the deepening sun and watched you shine in its glow. He would have told you how to play tricks on your sister and me. The two of you would have kept man secrets. You would have made your own traditions and we would have all shared in them together.
In between seasons there is a certain breath in the air that speaks of change and memory. It is a reminder that we are part of the cycle, part of something. You have a place here, I've kept it for you.
Night, night Frost
Mama loves you.