Category: Poetry

20 Reasons You Think Are Irrational
AKA
20 Reasons I Blame Myself, Still

1. I ate expired mustard.
2. I did not drink enough water.
3. Some days, I skipped breakfast.
4. Not consistently getting 9 hours of sleep.
5. The heavily discounted multi-vitamins.
6. Jogging a couple blocks when I was running late.
7. I couldn’t remember the last time I went to the gym.
8. I was startled when I heard somebody try to break into my house.
9. The anger I felt when I later realized that they had broken into my car and stolen thousands of dollars in work equipment.
10. Eating too much soy.
11. I drank hot chocolate. Though it’s less caffeine than coffee, perhaps it was too much.
12. Too much refined sugar. Along with the hot chocolate I had a juicebox a day habit I didn’t even try to kick.
13. The big bite from that three dollar bacon scone. After I swallowed I realized it hadn’t been refrigerated, I hadn’t thought about it when I made the purchase. I wasn’t sure how long it had been out or if it needed refrigeration at all… I threw the rest out. But maybe it was that. Maybe that scone was a 3 dollar, one bite abortion.
14. Breastfeeding my first too long.
15. Lifting my two year old daughter.
16. Not dating enough in my early twenties.
17. Being 35.
18. The ‘safe’ antibiotics the doctor prescribed.
19. Something to do with keeping my cell phone in my pocket and the wifi.
20. Maybe it’s because even though I try not to worry sometimes I still do.

Even though it all seems so unlikely, even though you think this is a list of irrational reasons.
Sometimes, I still can’t help but wonder
with regret.
If only I’d not done these things, maybe it would all be different
or at the very least
maybe
I wouldn’t feel so much to blame.

---

My heart breaks for anybody who identifies with this day as today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. This piece was written over three years ago after my own heart broke when they could not detect a heartbeat.

This was not your fault.
They attempt to assure you,
There’s nothing you did wrong.
Though rationally you can understand they are right,
Emotionally
It will feel devastating.
The doctor
offers analogies,
metaphors,
and similes.
Like a zipper getting stuck, trying to go up, but detecting a problem, an inconsistency,
It will not function.
It is the healthy thing for your body to do,
Your body is functioning perfectly as it is supposed to
Your body is evolution.
Your body is incredible.
It will almost sound poetic.

They do not know you used to write poems
back when you thought your heart was broken.
Looking back, it seems misdiagnosed.
What you had then was a strain,
This is heartbreak.

Back then you had a quiet confidence in your do-it-yourself skills
Believed with duck-tape and dental floss
You could fix almost anything.
This is irreparable.
Now you are an island.
Your hands and lips
Unable to come up for enough air
to rsvp
m i s c a r r i a g e
Maybe if you spell it, it won’t seem so bad,
Maybe then you can swallow it without choking.
Certainly then your 2 year old daughter will never repeat it in public.
You are struck with the question
Why is something so tragic steeped in so much silence and shame?
You feel so alone,
and broken.
Soon the silence will be broken,
When they whisper behind your back,
A word you cannot yet say in reference to yourself
A word that cuts like a chainsaw.
Your hormones are still raging,
Nausea and morning sickness once your favourite inside jokes,
Still going strong
Now only mocking you.
You are drowning in shock and disappointment.
You heart sends an SOS signal to your soul
Hoping to receive notes of compassion and kindness.
Your inbox quickly fills
All hate mail.
Subject: Your best efforts were not good enough
You become your own greatest enemy.
And you know exactly where to place grenades to maximize impact.

You are barely breathing, still silent screaming
Clinging to shiny new overweight baggage,
Before it gets too dark you need to make a plan
Even if it’s temporary… for one hour, one minute
For this second you decide to put grief on hold,
Get your duck-tape and dental floss
You can’t quite find your inner MacGiver
You Go Go Gadget scissors
Instead out pops a box of waterproof matches,
You packed them in case of rain
Never envisioned a saltwater tsunami
Though tonight you can send smoke signals
A small smile cracks your body
You take refuge in knowing your daughter and husband will come on a search mission
They will find you in a thousand pieces weeping by the fire
Grab the duck tape and dental floss.
They will do their best to put back the pieces
and they will love you
even if right now don’t quite have the skills to do-it-yourself.

For My Daughters

Although I wish it were not true, believe me when I say that almost every woman I know has found themselves backed into a corner.
Maybe it’s by the boy you think you could marry,
by the girl you have had a crush on for years,
by a friend of a friend, or stranger from the bar,
It may be the first date or the fifteenth.
Sometimes, ‘no’ will come out of your mouth and somehow seem to vanish.
As if unheard, as if unspoken. Other times, ‘no’ will seem impossible.
That does not mean you need to grab its binary opposition. Never say yes,
because you don’t quite want to say no.
It might be, ” Why don’t we just try? Your lips are saying yes….I know you want it – and maybe you do, but not like this, or not right now. Not everybody who is trying to get something from you will seem sinister.
And maybe when they speak you will still be able to see the glimmer in their eye that made you swoon in the first place. Maybe when they speak a part of you will still swoon to the sound of their voice.

In Karate they teach that if you are being strangled the first thing to do, is to put your chin down and to the side. The idea being, with this extra second that you can get a breath. With the ability to breathe you can find the strength to elbow, kick and bite your attacker and hopefully break away.

Metaphoric corners are far more common than literal ones. In these instances your words, will be your power. You may need more than one tactic but keep trying – you are worth the effort.
Sometimes shutting it down forever will be easy as; it’s not you it’s me, I’m not over my ex, or I think I am going to have diarrhea.
Other times confidence will overflow; it will be easy enough to say ‘I want things slow.’
But there will be times, when you may seem stuck, where you can’t see all your options, where everything suddenly fades to black,
where you can’t quite find the words,
when neither yes nor no seems quite right.

In these moments feel free to throw me under the bus.
Say, ’my mom is a bitch who will ground me for a month if I don’t get home – right now’
Say you have your period. Camps. A deadline that slipped your mind. Say you have a cold. Say you are taking medication and just got sleepy. Say you are nauseated, maybe ate a bad lunch.
If none of those seem right, say you have to go to the bathroom. Get an extra breath. Call me any time.
Please, say something because not wanting to say no should not be your silence. Silence should not be your permission. Do not let silence swallow you.
When you are backed into a corner you, know you are in the company of millions of women.
Though you may feel isolated, know you are not alone.
You are going to get out of this.
Take a breath, find your strength and break away.

On Sleep: The First 8 Months After Having a Baby

There were times I stayed up dancing
I’ve dined at 24-hour hole-in-the-walls
I have memories of watching sunrises
And although I’d like to be in bed by 10pm, most nights I get lost
In TV, Internet, a book or think spirals
Time is an Olympic sprinter.
But once I’m sleeping
I don’t want to be woken.
I want snooze.
I want my dreams back.
I like sleep
Like poets
Like similes.
I am not alone
Which likely explains why, when people see my baby they often ask me,
“Does she sleep through the night?”

She typically sleeps in four hour increments.
Though, I am not upset
Because one day she will sleep
And I won’t get up to feed her
In the middle of the night
When my world becomes still.
When there is silence
And I’m not tempted to scroll through through my feed
Or feel badly that I’m not folding laundry.
I don’t wonder if I will ever properly fit into my pre-baby clothes,
I don’t have any regrets.
In the middle of the night
My only focus is
On this time
with you.
You become everything
And I am the same to you.
It’s humbling
And more than I could have dreamed.

It is difficult to put into words how much I miss a good night’s sleep,
But it’s harder to express how special I feel about our moment
Sitting in the pocket.
It is only a matter of time before I will get more than four hours of consecutive sleep
and if I am lucky
I will dream
Of the special quiet time
We used to share.

In the hospital after having my second child,
When my first daughter came to visit,
She kissed the new baby.
Then, she rubbed my tummy and asked,
‘Mommy, when is the other baby coming out?’

I had to explain that though my tummy looked like it could still have a baby inside
It had been a house, for the baby.
Now the baby was outside
And my tummy, the house, would get smaller,
But it would take a bit of time for the house to know
That there was no longer a baby inside.
It’s been 7 months, the house knows it has been abandoned.

Today, while playing with my daughter
She looks at my stomach and says,
‘Mommy, You have a big tummy.’
I am temporarily paralysed
I don’t quite recall when I fell out of favour with my chubby tummy
but it was some time in the 1980s.
Now, years later, in a time when I am primarily wearing elastic pants
My 3-year-old daughter effortlessly launches
What appears to be a live grenade.

My daughter does not know that models
And beauty are manufactured,
Usually with insecurities, disenchantment, and discontent.
Without missing a beat she says,
‘Mommy, your tummy is soft.’
She is correct. My stomach will never be voted, ‘best stomach,’
unlikely to be envied by the women in the change room or around the swimming pool.

She reaches out to touch and kiss my stomach
For a moment my insecurities run like cowards,
Leaving gratitude and confidence.
My daughter is right when she sees love,
When she sees health, when she sees comfort.
She says, ‘Mommy, your tummy had two babies,
I love your tummy’
And for the first time in as long as I can remember,
I love my tummy too.