Not Always, But Most Days..

Not Quite Enough.

(When days are bad…)

Some days- I don’t know why God breathed life into me… It seems the moment I wake up, it’s nothing but consistent and constant chaos… I wake up EVEN more tired and defeated, than I went to sleep the night before. I feel pain coursing down my spine, conclusive to two vertebrae that have shifted out of place and a dislocated hip, which I can thank child birth for…

I wake up to constant enigma of stressors. I wake up to a 4 year old, wailing at the top of her lungs, bellowing from the gut of her belly that she is tired and not ready to wake. Distressed perspiration gathers in the small of my back and the apple of my forehead. I’m gritting through my teeth as I’m trying to swallow the fury that is burgeoning in the gorge of my mouth from my chest, as we go through our daily, morning, scripted routine.

Then, I enter the gates of doom. Doom is a capital driven appointment, where everything has been twisted and fashioned for failure. Negative. Negative. Negative. NEVER enough. Never enough. Never enough. Never enough. Never enough. Never enough. Never enough. Never enough. Never enough. Never enough. Never enough. Never enough. Never. Enough.

Sweat, Sweat, Blood, Blood.

Until I am a blood-drained, protein-scraped husk; deliberately sluiced like an unwanted embryo chastened to principled gadgets and stirrups…

Then. I am expected to function. Normally…

I’m late. I’m late for everything. Pre-School. Work. Appointments: doctor’s, dentist’s. Meetings. Dinners. Church. Everything. I’m late for everything.

Mediocrity is laced in every movement of my mortal, like a drug- induced collusion of spun images; intertwined with haste. I am mediocre at everything. And the unclaimed and unaccredited perfectionist within me, clenches with frustration and invariable annoyance, like a former beauty queen staring with opiate- glazed and dimmed irises, at a thin layer of dust- topped trophies from her wonder years, called her past.

I am mediocre. I am mediocre as a mother. I am mediocre as a daughter. I am mediocre at my job. I am mediocre as a being in my country. I am mediocre at volunteering. I am fucking mediocre at saving the earth- God knows, when was the last time I even thought about recycling??!

I am mediocre at imagining and creating.

And, because of this, I have lost my luster… I have lost what made and makes me feel complete joy and bliss. I lost my mojo. I lost my will to live. I have lost my gusto. I have lost my rhyme and reason. I have lost my great cause for the great fight.

I have lost me.

And me, is very much missed..

And the fireflies miss me…

Because no matter, how much people have told me. No matter how much people tell me. No matter how much many compliments I get. Encouragement I get. Swift kicks in the ass I get. Validation of what a strong person I am…………………………………..

I am struggling.

I am treading. Treading water as I’m fighting a fight beyond my control as Goliath is pulling me under this ravenous and raging sea by my roots. I am sinking. But, I believe the day I die… And the vehement abyss swallows me whole… And my lungs fill with demure liquid defeat and disappointment as I close my eyes and fall back asleep…

To awaken to another lotto of a good or very bad, no good day.

After the Marital War and Admitting Defeat... (November 2009)

Legacy.

Who thought, I would ever be in the predicament that I am now?... Completely saturated in my own failures. Not a soul around me, wanting to be me, much less be there with me… Failure wraps its astringent limbs around my lacerated and beaten body, unwilling to let me loose. I cannot feel the sunshine on my face, underneath the rubble of my losses.

–I cannot feel the sunshine on my face, underneath the rubble of my losses.-

Loneliness and shame are my bests of friends. Envy is a constant beast that I bind deep under my breast as I watch those around me in a state of completely content rapture. My heart. My heart continues to ache. It aches with an indescribable ache. And no matter how much I tend to this aching creature. No matter how much I talk to this aching creature. She continues to whimper in the Cimmerian shade…… And with her… I wail. I sob. I shed tears.

And unlike my past, where I would run for the hatchway and completely flee, run, and run until my legs are burning, my lungs are bulge with pain as I heave for breath, I am unable to move. I can hear the daunting stares just burn through my skin. My past an overwhelmingly pungent tang, unable to escape. I carry with me my flesh of my flesh. And she holds onto me tightly and I smell her sweet, warm, milky breath. I see everyone seeing me, almost unable to look away, unable to exchange a kind word, or a relinquishment of wisdom that all will be well. And still, I force myself to step each step with my head parallel. For my eyes to meet each pair of eyes that stare at me scrutinizing and I with sovereign effort  will smile.