catnipkitty

Introspective feelings - here they come again. Knocking on my door like a long lost friend. We sit in somber silence and contemplate the past. How did we even get here? Was it all that bad? The twists and turns of time have changed me. For better? For worse? I cannot tell. My mind and soul have lost each other, their tidal-locked orbits expelled. Desires of unfortunate circumstance whisper alluring lies - ensaring fantasies, bold and fast, quaking between clenched thighs. I snap back from my reverie and pat my sweat-kissed brow. I dare not name temptation. I dare not ask it "how?" I slip my husk back on myself and manifest a smile. My acquainted world is looming. I've tarried far past a while.

Caked tears cling to weary, bloodshot eyes. Fresh dewbuds mingle with memories - they trickle into my palms, between my fingers. Gravity receives them graciously as they roll down my cheeks, off my chin. I feel the embrace only my mother can give. I smell the warmth of her perfume envelop me. I hear her heartbeat - steady and calm. But, she's not here with me. Spirit gone, body cold - she left us to grieve a loss so great our hearts ache, burning like fire, piercing through our chests. Stomachs twist and turn, throats grow raw from wails battling for freedom. Only stifled whimpers emerge as we, the "survivors," cling to one another - sharing our pain as we silently remind ourselves to breathe. How can we go in without you, Mom? Things will never be the same...

There is nothing quite like the sleep of sorrow, twisting and churning a mind not fully at rest. Dark dreams, like secret, haunted tunnels urge the unwilling captive forward through menacing fog, slick with fear. Cries cannot break free - lips are glued shut, sinking farther down into depths of worry. Echoes multiply and expand, filling an empty cavern, reverberating from rocky walls, crashing and rebounding from one another until a chorus of despair and grief wash the fog clear, and I rouse - groggy, woeful, yearning for a mother lost.

There's magic in those quiet hours of a lazy, Saturday morning When the sun peaks through the windows, gently asking to be let in When the blankets are a warm, cozy haven you never wish to leave All is still before the bustle of a household begins Loved ones slumber and dream, unaware of the peace this new dawn brings No need to rush, no place to be except right here in these moments before the world wakes How lovely it is to simply lay To exist in this space of tranquility Poised and ready for the first breath of life in a day...