For Steel

CW chronic disability/illness

Written March 31 2020

For Steel
 
In the morning my broken parts come for me before I’ve had a chance to form sentences, to make muscles into memory, and to forge steel for my backbone. There is no easy way to hold space through these wordless moments. They stretch out forever right up to the border of me.
 
This morning I ready my medication and use some left over Fiona Apple for strength. I glance at my phone as my stiff fingers and slow wrists spill powdered medications and pills all over the kitchen cutting board, onto the floor, and into the cuffs of my pajamas. My borders are easily breeched.
 
I look at my dinging phone notifications with today’s memory on my Google pic app, where my heart is held lightly, where my days leave tracks across my time, where my children are yesterday, and where my tendency to not delete digital content isn’t even remotely intimidated  by threats of full storage.
 
My fingers pick up dozens of pills, pink, peach, red, striped, all stuffed with life giving forces. I wipe up fiber. My amygdala argues some lies with me. My fatigue begs for more air time and my hips fairly scream as they bear my weight. I think it must be my photo app that steadies me, my hands, my legs, and my heart. I wonder at the power of it. It offers nothing really, just a few images, a couple whispered moments in passing as I hurtle onward through my existence.
 
There is no easy way to hold space through these wordless moments. They stretch out forever right up to the border of me. All the way through my breathing, deep into my most valuable heart beats, all along the floorboards where the pills hide and the powder is gritty and irretrievable, where days of stale crumbs and dried up shredded cheese remind me of how many months it’s been since I could cook or sweep, where lack of sleep has changed me, and where stretched out in both directions as far as my will could possibly reach, are these pieces and parts of me that are at their most vulnerable when they try to exist in the real world. I scatter easily. I am full of words that I cannot take back.
 
I gather me up and I hold me.
 
In the morning my broken parts come for me before I’ve had a chance to form sentences, to make muscles into memory, and to forge steel for my backbone. But now, this morning, I’m holding some raw material for forging. For when I’m ready. What happens at that forging will depend on who I am when I get there. 

*pic is of my dog, Luna, hiding from life

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