can opener

i listen to everyone else around me. complain. i know what they are going to say before they say it. rehearsed. never stoping to just, stop.

autopilot.

i know i am lucky. i can find excitement and joy. i realized today i can find it in anything. i opened up a can of beans. there is something quite satisfying and exciting even about that first crack the can opener makes on the can. crack. my toes tingled at the sound. the beans breathe in. i exhale.

stoping to smell the flowers, or in this case, beans.
maybe its not luck. maybe i just don't have an  autopilot button.
either way, i can't complain.

bone crushing. i felt it all day after listening to my father cry. he was sad. i told him we are all okay and that i loved him. i told him that he is okay. i told him that i wouldn't want our family any other way. i told him i had to go. heavy hearted i walked all day. i tried to move around it, i tried to move past it, i tried letting the wind beat in my ears, the cold numb my body and free me. i tried.
but i was, and am still, consumed by his pain. his heart is shattered. a broken man, trying his best to be everything he can for what is left of his broken family. to right the wrongs he did so long ago.
ringing in my ears, screaming through my veins. gnawing on my bones. his sadness i have now claimed. but i know now he has been released from it, and i find comfort in that. he is my father and i love him. tonight i will refuel. tomorrow i will be better.

velcro love

today i spoke with a woman from ireland while we both waited for her husband to finish his acupuncture session. she told me of how her husband has a.l.s. and that his condition is worsening faster than the doctors had expected. she told me that his hands don't really work anymore. how he has really been struggling with his loss of dexterity and as a result, his loss of independence. she went to stop a tear from falling with the finger that had a thimble on it, and then switched fingers when she realized. as she was telling me about her husband, she had been sewing velcro to the inside of his shirt directly behind each button allowing for him to not have to fight the buttons or ask for help. she looked at me and said, "i do this so that he can, you see?"

i see.

can i come too?

darkness trickles in from all corners 

and then i blink and have to start again.

my heart turns over like an engine sending blood panicking.

dreams sail away from me on paper boats made by little hands.

i blink and have to start again.

are you on a paper boat with my dreams?