sirens and tequila

Sirens.  And tequila.  

Sirens and tequila.  And water.  Substituting vodka for tequila sometimes.  But always water and sirens.  Each night of vacation.  

And memories of Dan.  

He doesn't read this.  He doesn't review the memories.  Go over the shared things.  He doesn't give a flying fuck, as my mother would say.  He is done.  I would like to be on that page of the chapter, I pretend to be so far advanced.  But at night it does its catching up.  And everyone else in the universe goes to bed.  And I'm wide the fuck awake with shitty memories and a blinking cursor and tequila and no limes.  

I want to be penetrated.  I want to cum.  But just by one person in the universe, only one.  It's impossible, it's fucking monumental.  It's inane.  But I want to feel real.  I want to be held.  But only by him.  

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.  Can someone just make it a feasibility already?  Where do I sign?  

I've practiced Spanish.  I've cleaned.  I've folded origami.  I've written.  I've read.  I'm developing character, I tell myself.  I even pray.  I smile in darkness with tears on my face as I say thank you.   

But I want to trace the stubble of your chin.  I want to feel the weight of your curls in my fingers in darkness.  I want to listen to you breathe as you sleep.  

I miss.  I miss.  I miss.  

I will no more pour you away

I think this poem is really quite stunning.  The words might be simple but they are beautiful, the line breaks feel right, and the feeling you get from it feels really big and very complex.  I cannot even put it into words.  I read it a number of times, and sat with it.  Many of the sentences are just gorgeous.  I don't know, I'm certainly not being profound, but I recommend reading this poem.  Arden is very lucky.

 

Thoughts Before Whittling

Sarah Gridley

for Arden

When a block of wood
falls into your hands,
angle the knife away,
skim the wood as you would milk.
Listening for what to do next is this
transparent, the bones of the ear,
this exactingly small.
As you were
will be the command
restoring you to love.
You will not
pretend to forget
what is hard
and innermost here.
Years ago,
you were gifted a tea set
that made no sense.
So miniature the cups,
the pot, the creamer—
any attempt at ceremony
could only overrun them.
Do not deceive me,
soul,
and I will no more
pour you away.

limbs unencumbered in darkness

I'm just taking time for myself, focusing on getting myself back. 

I know it sounds totally nuts.  I'm working hard on letting myself enjoy it.  Enjoying finding myself again.  I'm on vacation.  And for the first time in a long time, I'm reading in total silence.  Or I'm listening to music and folding origami.  Or I'm sleeping alone sprawled out in my bed and relishing the joy of limbs unencumbered in darkness.  And that I can feel words like unencumbered in my soul.  Why do I know words like that?  Where does it come from? 

Dude, I'm digging it.  I bought Babbel and I'm trying to teach myself Spanish too.  Kind of hilarious at current.  But I'm going with it.  Just enjoying the process.

Life, I do actually love you.  Thank you for being patient with me.  And now I'm going to try to be more patient and kind with myself, because this is kind of awesome. 

Also hilarious: jade roller in the freezer for a few, and rolling on some kind of serum watching The Last Kingdom.  Nerdy thirty-something alert.  I can do whatever the fuck I want.  And it's awesome.

fuck you, daniel sain. you soulless piece of shit.

I am so very weary of it all.  Of drinking on the nights I am not back to work.  And then the nights I am due back to work thinking about the suffering and the death, the feeling of dread collecting about my shoulders like some terrible shroud.

I should feel joy. 

Joy that I avoided a meager soul.  A soul that knows none of this depth and complexity.  That has to look up words in the dictionary and even then cannot feel them and the weight of them.  I was thinking of Tim O'Brien and The Things They Carry.  And how he could read words but not connect with them, and even then he might take hours to get through a single chapter.  That judging nature of my being.  It's not nice, but it's honest.  The slow drudgery of it all, the way when we moved together it was still always apart.

Well, fuck you.  Go ahead and block me.  I rise against.  I meet your block and I raise it.  Never shall you know my bed again.  Never shall you know my wit or my sharp tongue, or laugh so honestly.  Never shall you feel so comforted that you did all the right things after a hard day's work.  Never shall you feel so appreciated in what you do.  And never will you get off so fucking much.  

So fuck you.  No other woman will want to fuck you the way I did.  You soured all of it.  You are the court jester, the great dunce in the corner of the classroom.  The rest of the class at work knows it.  No one is saying I made a huge mistake.  I hear that I know you are sad, I'm sorry, but he was awkward, I think it was for the best.  I always thought he was a dick, time to move on.  So many things of the same sentiment.  

No one thinks I'm a dick.  No one thinks I'm a tin man without a heart.  

I've got soul.  I've got five million hearts.  Rivers of blood.  I am a beating drum, and I will not be silenced.  So fuck you.  I will play louder.  I will rise up.  I will not drown in myself.  I will run.

Daniel Sain, you are the cruelest cunt.  You said you would never do to me what had been done a million times before.  But you are a truly ignorant fuck.  I have been left a thousand times.  And I have grown up.  I am Francie Nolan.  I am that pitiful fucking tree growing in Brooklyn, despite all odds, pushing up in the tenements of Brooklyn.  I will grow strong and tall and I will have love and all the things I have given to others for so many years.  And you will learn nothing, you will push your grimy dick into some other unfortunate soul and have another one year relationship and wonder why you, why you?  

You are the worst kind, the cruelest kind.  And I should have seen you coming a mile-off.  The repeat offender disguised as the poor-me, the take care of me broken wing boy.  The one that needs saving.  I will no longer be saving ANYONE.  I am taking care of ME.  I love ME.  I am weary of this banality.  I need a new storyline.  I need someone without creepy eyes and a one-note personality, who has questions for the universe.  I need someone who can apologize and have love in his soul for me, not someone who only has ego and love for himself and refuses to speak to me but merely blocks or unblocks me depending on his whim and the current status of his self-importance.

You don't even know how to eat pussy.  That's why I stopped you.  Watch some porn.  That's where I learned my tricks, what makes you above it.  

FUCK YOU, DANIEL SAIN.  You hurt me so much, for so many months.  You are the cruelest.  It's COVID-19, and I tell you I pray for you and your family, which I genuinely have, and you don't ask after me or mine?  I visited your family on numerous occasions, and you were never bothered to meet my mother?  You never loved me, you fuck.  And now I get it.  I see through you.  You are a genuinely sick, disturbed person.  Yeah, you, Daniel Sain.  You are a sick fuck, and you deserve the karma in this life you receive.  Thank you so much for just up and leaving me with ZERO FUCKING EXPLANATION EVER because that saved me from living with a disturbed person. Oh and for never contributing or paying rent, super awesome.  Winner, winner!



You are a fucking asshole.  You have fair-weather friends (all four of them).  You will get what you deserve.  I might be drunk but at least I'm telling the truth.

covid-19

Being a PICU nurse in New York City during the COVID-19 (gonna refer to as covid so less assaulting on the eyes) pandemic of 2020 certainly isn't the worst thing.  I could be working in the MICU or in med surg. 

My heart bleeds for those nurses.  I literally think of all of the providers, all of the people in that hospital, and I just cry.  I pray for all of them.  For the nurses, the doctors, the respiratory therapists, the nursing assistants, the techs, the physicians assistants, the environmental services workers, the nutritionists, the physical therapists, the occupational ones, speech.  The list goes on.  But not only them.  The ones who suffer in the beds.  The ones dying alone in an OR repurposed as a place to take care of critically-ill patients. 

I feel so powerless. 

Now we are starting to admit adult patients, to take off a tiny fraction of the stress they feel on the adult side. But it never feels like enough.

I pray nightly for all of these people.  For my family, for my coworkers.  I am so grateful for the people providing us with food and PPE and places to stay.  I hear the cheers in Brooklyn at 7 pm on my days off and it has, quite honestly, moved me to tears.

In my personal life, it's different.  I don't really feel a whole lot of anything anymore.  It's been seven months since Dan left but it feels fresher.  I wish I could hug him and provide him comfort.  But I know he doesn't need it from me, and I need to work on myself.