Remembering Mickie, Entry Num. 1: She

She bid us farewell some Sunday’s ago and life has been surreal ever since
Sunday’s have a stigma now that sting me upon every awake
She lives in memories and dreams
and it seems unfair that even there
she is too distant,
far too removed from my touch or my teeth—
I can’t feel her or taste her with any words…so I bite
She is becoming a collection of vagaries
my mind can’t seem to park on one main thing concerning her—
her shaved head, freckled face or turquoise finger nails
She is all smiles in my intentional reveries
but there are moments when my mind’s eye recalls
her decadence and misery
It was hurtful to watch her slip slow into a solemn slumber
But peace was upon her when I last saw her body
at rest
empty of her personality,
void of her struggle,
expired from her pain,
a mere husk of stolen vitality
It was cancer that snatched her from me,
from sunrises at arm’s reach, from downtowns and beaches,
from sisters’ night out and patient privileges
from human love and familiy
It was cancer that took her victory
Leaving us with only her name on our lips
convincing ourselves if we pretend long enough
the missing of her will disintegrate into our fabrics
but never seep through our skin
when the wretched truth is
we are concaved
searching for meaning in our own living
meaning to live in our mourning
looking for joy to remove our weeping
when remembering stops hurting
and Sunday morning’s are just another day to pray

erm…It is Well
#RememberingMickie

Returning to Me

I come and go with my musings and moments of inspiration. I casually wander around in both the mundane and versatile details of the life I breath; along dingy city streets or any countryside densly popoulated with colorful greens and trees. The sight of nomads backpacking, mom-toting babies on their daily walk among quaint homes, bucolic churches or plush green feilds converging into a blue sky—they always pull me.

When it comes to my fine art, I am equally committed and inconsistent on any given day. I am bound to urgent napkin notes and envelope poetry…though less scatter brained, as I can now thought broadcast into the memo of a smart phone. Except it’s been too many days since I have stilled myself in a space and moment to capture and memorialize any part of this life. It’s not easy being me.

I carry this brain and this heart and these hands and on more than once or twice a day, these feelers and seers nudge me to take note of, hold remembrance too, take pause and immortalize the givings and misgivings of the day. And these past few weeks, I’ve had plenty. I continue to walk in lessons and impending victories. At times I am self aware enough to dialogue through the doubts and the discoveries.

But I know one thing for sure, no matter how busy or self occupied, the letters of the alphabet are always calling me. They implore me to shuffle them into mixed media and prose imagery. It is the strongest desire to run free in the expanse of vocabulary that perpetually haunts me. I feel I will implode if I do not give in to the fulfilling of the release. I have to give my words away. They do not belong to me. Time and time again, with the simplest expression, a caption, a thought given away via any frequency…this is confirmed for me. There is someone always in the point of need and I meet them with a soliloquy.

Which leads me always to one sound conviction: He gives me words to fill-full His thin-skinned vessels and all the beautiful, bruised and beloved ones. I am among the humans He uses to scribe messages of light and love and beauty. Of hope and inspiration, and fragility. He funnels and filters and flows through me. What a heavy blessing to bear; truly a brilliant burden, to blend faith with sentiment to bind beings and their belongings with brave words in the brevity of any moment. And I wouldn’t pass it over ever. I know, I am called to lay all the breathtaking, beauty and benevolence down. I am called to write.

erm…It is Well

My Issue with Blood

We will ask God
She said
We will seek His face on your behalf
That He would extend his generous grace upon the flesh of you
That He would make all the skin and bones that would propel you
Yet maintaining your humble spirit
Healed and whole

We will ask God
She said
We will appeal to His heart
to make a blessing of your infirmity
to touch you there ever so softly
to heal the feeling of your anxiety
to tuck comfort in your ability to choose trust
Swallow your mustard seed Beloved,
You are always well

We will ask God
She said
To remind me...
As if all that we bring and all that we bear
Did not come from His yes and His Amen
But it is a blessing too when He does not agree
Because we know He who ordains our expected end
will carry us through it
And it is perfect
Clearer than our eye can see
Louder than our ear can here
More magnificent than our heart can contain

We will ask God
She said
He already heard 

This poem was inspired by a darling, faith-full believer, who upon my (unconfirmed) news of having fibroids, responded with: We will ask God. And for whatever reason, her resolute answer inspired me to poetry. 

WARNING! Some real adult/womanhood content follows.
Anyone who reads me knows, I like to find things interesting. And I find it rather interesting that (as women) our issues flow from and through our bodies by blood shed. That our dark wombs can and will create substance of our issues and purge them out from us as blood. Interesting, that from our private spaces, unknown and unseen; from our vaginas, our infirmaties or impurities flow free.

Having experienced the heaviest and most uncomfortable menstruation of my entire life, I have never been more clear on the value, purpose, impact, and meaning of my vagina! Yup, that's what I said. To think that my issues--flow from my body--through my coochie! This one thought really encourgaes me to further scrutinize who and their issues I will allow to enter into my sacred, self correcting body. 

WORTH MENTIONING! This past month has given me an entirely new perspective on an unnamed woman in the Bible, referenced always as "the woman with the issue of blood".  While I did not suffer the stigma of being "ceremonially unclean", I certainly felt a hint of what the weight of her socail isolation could have felt like. And while I have not suffered this condition for years, my two to three weeks was more than I wanted to bear. 

It is not a good feeling to have zero control over what and how your body changes/reacts through natural causes. And it could be a stuggle adapting to a new normal. But I will not let it be. I took my time to decide that surgery is the best option for me. I will take my time to recover. And I will continue to appreciate that as I go through ups and downs, along the way, I can still be inspired to write. 

erm... It is Well

The Women Before Me and Our Demons

Saint or sinner
Saints or sinners
Pick your poison
Offer a prayer
How many of them
went to Heaven for me...

I think I thought to think...that I only, was the one adulteress in the lineage of my feminality, only to discover a distinct pathology of self-righteous infidelity. 
I sat to think and thought that only I, had committed the heaviest of sins and deviated from a heritage of holy sanctuary, to give away a sacred body to another mortal whom did not belong to me. Only to discover over hard drinks and sweet tea, that the wiles of me were innate, a passive transgression from the women who bled heavy long before me. 

Not that I want to give away the secrets buried with the dead or the secrets under the bed of the alive, but these demons were at the bedside of my creation, breathing heavy for me, long before I closed eyes, to form lips for a first kiss. But I would be remiss if I did not mention, I have a notice for every demon that would come to demean us, me. 

Notice to proceed--away from every corridor around my feet, every breath of air near to me. Flee! From my time. From the corners of my womb's memory and the daughter who came from within me. An eviction notice I give, to that which comes to perpetuate a promiscuous misery. To stir the extravagance of messy sheets and fantasies later draped in melancholy, for love is never birthed from unrequited affinity. 

All that to say, it is true, we repeat histories and destinies; nothing is new under the sun or the soft fall of rain. The curses are not far behind the generations to come; we owe the liberty and beauty of transparency to every daughter coming into her self-reality. The women before me, how many of them went to heaven for me? Them, seated up there in the right hand, interceding for me. Love is ahead. 

erm...It is Well

Ways to Healing & Happiness

Because every broken heart needs mending, 
every hurting spirit needs healing and
every wounded women needs wholeness. 

Healing and Happiness are your birthrights. 
Along the road to healing and happiness, here are a few things you can do and a few ways you can be to stay on your best path. 

1. Be grateful for your feelings! 
Why? Because your feelings are for you. They belong to you and they serve you. Your feelings urge you and remind you; they prompt you, they pause you. But most importantly, they connect you to your Father God. God is touched by the feeling of your infirmity. He is touched by your tears, your heartbreak. Imagine, the condition of your heart, your sad countenance--conditions Him. He feels for you. And like the wonderful, compassionate Father, comes down from His throne to comfort you, to champion for you, and to contain you. 
Your feeling is how healing comes. God is the source of your ultimate healing and wholeness. However once you have honored and processed them, get out of your feelings and get into your future. Make it happen for yourself: moment by moment, faith to faith. 

2. Do not be angry; do not be bitter. Be amiable; be beauty--to yourself. 
Because when you forgive yourself, you get freedom. Freedom to be you! The God-made you not the man-said you. Contrary to popular belief, you will never run out of your essence. It is impossible to give your whole self away. You have not run out of love. You have not run out of kindness, compassion or devotion. These are your primary ingredients; your purposeful fillings. Remove the decay and clutter from the years of living, to uncover the original you. You are sweet and deserving. You are beauty unparalleled, You are more than amazing. You are altogether beautiful, Beloved. There is no flaw in you. You are priceless. Literally. 
Stand on that truth. You are worth life and loving. Develop an inner scripture to affirm so. (i.e. I am the beloved child of God. I am one with my undivided love). 

3. Do not look back. We are all familiar with the unfortunate end of Lot's wife. Stuck...
We are not called to live in the tombs of our memories. We are not called to dance in the shadows with fallen ghosts. We are not called to envy the visions of yesterday, nor make pretty a painful past. We are called to live every moment--in the moment. 
Cliche: Now is all you have. But it is. So Now--happiness. So Now--laughter. So Now--celebrate. So Now--love yourself. So Now--savor your soul. So Now: joy, vacation, new choices, appreciation, different perspectives...schedule your pleasures Now.
So NOW--not I can't wait until... 

But NOW. Put your Needs Over your Wants and be well! 
Needs Over Wants. You Need five essentials to survive:
Air--breathe, inspire yourself daily. Look to the things that inspire your life, your love, your creativity, your happiness. And breath them in. 
Shelter--guard your heart. But do not close it. Do not block it. Guard it but let life flow through it. You can handle it. Be your safe haven. 
Water--hydrate your body. Soak your spirit with living water. Plenish your soul with the spiritual practices to keep you balanced. 
Food--eat right. Energize yourself. Eat the foods that boost your health and energy. 
Sleep--rest. Rest your weary self. Rest your whole self to restore your whole self. You deserve to recuperate to be ready to keep living. 

erm...It is Well

Incline to Love

The years of tears left scars, left her praying to the stars, a heart ajar with God, a beautiful reservoir...of sullied love and a sweet resurrection...

These days thoughts come to me as fragments and incomplete sentences. Nothing full enough to bloom. Only fragments and incomplete sentences, fractured at the very moment of their birth. 

Experience the mind of a writer.  Some days my thoughts are whimsical and want to speak of full moons fancy with blue and blood, a scientific phenomenon or mesmerizing aphrodisiac to mere mortals setting into a perfect sunset, loving after the sun falls into an abyss. 

And other times, the thoughts are philosophical, imploring the hungry heart to cleave to the love already apprehended for us. Already mourned over. Already resurrected. And I find themes in certain words that like to keep coming back to me for use here and there. 

But most of all my incomplete companions emerge to speak of love unknown. I carry words that yearn to learn the substance of love.  It is my favorite subject.  The kind of love which holds us at gunpoint, pleading to please the gunman. The kind that keeps us as a prisoner of hope in the clutch of love's calling.  The sacred love that lays beside us to uncover our nakedness and consecrate us...Love is my muse. Love is my motivation, my inclination, like sunflowers incline toward sky's radiant blue. 

The month is February, the month of love for most. Let us celebrate love. The enigma of it together with the fullness of it. Let us celebrate all the ways it comes to us, all the ways it heals us, the ways it covers us, breaks us, mends us and molds us. Let us celebrate the ones who come to give it to us, the ones who withhold it and the ones who come to revive it in us. Let us honor love as who we are and what we came here to do. Let us be love. Let us create love. Let us command love to abide in our hands and hearts. Let us love. 

erm...It is Well