Holding Time

Holding Time

Holding time in our hands

Holding our breath

Holding back tears

Holding hands

Holding hope in our hearts

Holding memories of you

Holding tight to one another

Holding tighter to you

Holding every moment (like it may be our last)

Holding time in our hands

...Wanting to hold on to you forever.

A little over a month ago my father-in-law's eyes turned yellow. A few days later, his skin turned a yellowish hue, too. On June 23rd, he went to the ER. Within a week or two, he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer called Cholangiocarcinoma. After running countless tests, the doctors determined the cancer was inoperable and that radiation and chemotherapy were not even options we should consider by that point. "Death is imminent," the doctors told us. About a week and a half ago we brought him home with hospice care. On Sunday, my fiance and I had a small wedding ceremony so that his father would be able to see it before he passed. Today, my beautiful father-in-law was given peace and passed on the next life.

In the midst of driving back and forth from the hospital and caring for this extraordinary man in his last month, I wrote a poem that expresses a little piece of what my family has been going through during this difficult time. My father-in-law once read an article I wrote about his son (my husband) that moved him to tears. I hope he likes this one just as much. 

Every day is a blessing. Every moment you spend with someone you love is a moment to treasure. Do not ever forget to acknowledge that. Always make sure your loved ones know that they are loved.

Daddy, this one is for you.

The Probation of Poesy

What does a poet do
when she has lost her muse?

Bereft of inspiration,
that rattling, prattling on in her head is of no use,
no poetical truths.

What does a writer do
when the words simply will not come?

Her mind races and rambles on and on,
But she cannot put the thoughts together,
She cannot quiet all the unnecessary clutter.

There is no logical connection,
no more intellect from meditation,
no heart and soul to brain communication.
Just blank hesitation.


Does anyone even read anymore?
Or am I just chasing a dying art?
Scribbling words on a page
that no one will ever even see.

Be Not Afraid

These scars,
though they were deep,
have had their time to heal.

It's time to begin again.

Let go of fear.
Walk forward into the sun.
Stand firm and

Be not afraid.

What We Become

Well there once was a girl that I knew
She wore black clothes and her hair was blue
Her face was sad and skin pale in hue.
She rarely spoke. Her heart, it broke.
She lost everything.

Her arms had scars and her legs did too
The scars on her heart were black and blue
I had heard, but were the rumors true?
No, they could not be. It's too hard to believe.
How could she live with that memory?

Came home from school and she walked inside
A chill down her spine, and then she spied:
Dead on the floor her mother did lie.
Her brain had died, though she had tried.
She was alone.

Now her dad, he drank and she got hit.
He found pleasure in telling her she's shit.
She turned her music up and she'd sit
Alone in her room. It became her tomb.
She wished she would die, God she did try.

This sad solemn girl befriended me
She led me inside her misery
I fell crushed by waves of sympathy.
The empathy... it ruined me.
The darkness had descended on me.

Inside, I began to feel a shift
A most disconcerting kind of drift
To drugs I turned, just to feel a lift.
Life is just meaningless. Everyone's full of shit.
What is this all for?



*Before I end this post, I feel it is necessary to mention that though the poem's content is 100% from my own mind and soul, it was also inspired by a song I love that was stuck in my head. I took the rhythm of the song and wrote the words to go along with it. Though it does not exactly mimic the songwriter's melodic pattern, it was the inspiration behind the poem. The song is called, "Don't Know When, But A Day Is Gonna Come" by the indie/folk band Bright Eyes. Check it out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDjo1oIPAPI

Daily Demons

Early every morning,
the daily demons,
they attack.
Physical, painful,
gut-wrenching.
I have to get these demons
off my back.

They get inside my head,
run around lighting little fires
in my brain.
Fear, hate, insecurity,
anger, jealousy
deep dark depression.
Refrain.

The demons control my blood;
they weaken it, make me pale,
and make me sick.
Dizziness, fainting,
small seizures.
These demons exhaust me.
Anemic.


It was such a heavy price to pay,
to get these demons
off my back.
First, they will take you up so high,
but they never warn you
of how far you will fall when you come down:
a screaming, wailing, clawing back
...a heart attack.


To get out of hell,
I must travel back through;
It's never-ending
the head never stops throbbing
the stomach never stops aching
the eyes never stop closing
the demons always jump back
on my back.

Reunion of Hearts

Come over here to me;
Meet me in the middle.
I need to breathe in your scent,
to run my fingers over your smooth skin
and through your soft tufts of hair.
With our eyes closed,
just laying there.

I yearn for this reunion of hearts
and wait for the setting sun;
I watch the hours tick slowly by,
agonizing with deep sighs.
How much longer must I wait?
I need to feel at home, and safe,
the way I feel in your embrace.

Come over to me now;
It has been far too long.
Let me look upon you and
take in everything about you I can.
I want to memorize you forever,
remember every blemish, every hair;
I want to get lost in the maze of your icy stare.

Every moment that passes without you here,
the demons get closer and threaten my mind...
You must come home to me
and fold me up against your body.
Protect me from the nightmares in my mind
and please do not ever leave me
For you were so very hard to find.

Beyond the Disease

I am not the things that I have done.
I am not the way that I have acted.
I am not the words that I have spoken.
None of those things are me.
It was only me
shadowed
by the disease.

I alone
I am energy
and light and compassion
I am good intentions.
I am love and I am life.
I am the smallest
and biggest
particle in this great Universe.
I am the sum of all of these things and
I am nothing.

I was created
with a lotus flower heart,
to be open and to heal
To nurture.
I was created to do more.

I have to break through
the shadows,
beyond the disease.

Good Versus Evil

Part I: Good

When it is just him and I
The things I will do are limitless,
my only goal is to please,
to watch that devious grin wash over his face
and know that I have done well
and he is close.

I give in to his power and force,
happily allow him to overtake me in every way.
I sigh and moan as he presses his weight against me,
shiver under the staccato kisses he bestows upon me:
lips, neck, bosom, stomach, thighs
and what's inside.

My desire is to be devoured,
and he delivers deeply
thrusting as I dig my nails into his skin,
surrendering and submitting to his every movement,
his every request is my desire to fulfill
I shake for him while he showers my face in his love.

He is mine and I am his;
our bodies are proof in the way they fold
and mold and become one whole.
When he is inside my warmth and embrace
He is mine,
I am his.


Part II: Versus Evil

When it is just me and me alone
My mind projects the paranoid possibilities
of my overplayed obsession;
I am poisoned and plagued
by visions of temptations too great
for his hungry desire to deny.

This place is filled with sin and
it's seeping out from within.
Beautiful women with abandon and bored
Find games in seeking out men's attention
and flirtatiously arousing
even those with purest of intentions.

I envision him ensnared by the
seductions of another, bestowing endless kisses
upon foreign lips, necks, bosoms, thighs,
and worse.
I envision him making someone else shake
and showering her in adulterous love.

The thought of him not being mine
is what keeps me up at night:
these paranoid phantoms I create in my mind.
It makes me sick with psychosis
to think of him entering another
after already claiming and devouring me whole.

To Bloom Again

I wish to disconnect with the me of yesterday
To let go of any past associations with myself
All of your impressions
and judgments,
all of my actions,
all experiences,
all reminders of before
this present moment.

I wish to live in this present moment:
To sit still in meditation
and feel the past shed from my being
like a second skin
I no longer need
or want.

It is letting go;
the art of detachment.
I wish to participate.

Time to move on,
morph,
and transform.





photography: Liz Collier (Me)