Please note: I wrote this last week when D-day was still looming and freaking me out a little. I scheduled it for today, because this is where it belongs, but it doesn’t reflect my state of being. Rather than a quivering, keening, irrational mess, I find the peace I came home from France with still on me. It’s a bit intense, but…I’m okay. There are always tears. Every day. But this peace…it’s like he’s got his big arms wrapped around me. Pain can’t get past him. Whimsical, maybe, but…anyway. ❤
There is no avoiding triggers, because
I don’t know what they are
until they’re pulled
And the bullet flies
And the blood spills in trickles
or rushes
a waterfall from my body,
my brain tossing memories:
chemical spatters on the wall where he once blew himself up
conducting experiments in the basement,
thrilled beyond words,
tamed–the crowding thoughts.
The roof he built
The tools he bought
The songs he sang
The love he gave
The sorrow and the sorrow and the sorrow he never meant to cause,
that added to the thoughts ever churning
a frenzy of joy and despair and back again.
A trigger is pulled, and down I go
Getting back up again is rote
Like breathing, like laughing, like remembering.
It’s been a year. It’s been a year. It’s been a god-damned bloody year.
The first of forever. And here I stand.
Braced against the next trigger pulled.
Willing to take that bullet.
Because, by now, I can.
~TLD
