Collectible (2.24.14)

I was watching a TV show
where a man owned a comic book,
a "collectible."
He was hoping to sell it,
but only for a million dollars.
"How much is it worth?"
he asked the expert, who answered
with a snide little twinkle in his eye,
"As much as the buyer is willing to pay."

Now,
I'm not that interested in comic books
or collectibles,
but, as a woman,
I know how it feels to be valued
based on whether enough people want you.
I know that you can be Limited Edition,
autographed by the
Author Himself
but if you have any "imperfections"
(the kind that prove you have an identity
or a past)
you might as well be thrown away.

My daughter was born missing
three toes
a radius bone
an ovary.
Her diaphragm was a tattered scrap of paper
torn out of the first chapter of her life.
She was the collectible comic book
that has been opened and read and pored over,
touched and loved until she fell apart,
her insides literally spilling out into a plastic sheath
that held her together.

The doctors had offered to take her off my hands,
cheap.
But she was worth so much more than that
and not because
I wanted her.

My daughter and I
are not collectibles.
You are worth more
than a comic book.

Our value lies
not in whether we are wanted
but in whether we
Are.

Pain (2.13.14)

I am in pain.
It is an absence,
a tearing away of what ought
to exist.
It is the sinkhole
that eats everything.
It is the black hole
from which even light cannot escape.
It is emptiness.

I am in pain.
It is heavy,
a crushing weight that,
every day,
I must heave uphill.
It is the boulder that,
every day,
rolls back down.
It is the avalanche that suffocates me.
It is all there is.

I am in pain
because you are absent.
I am in pain
because I cannot escape.

I am in pain because of you.

I love you.
I love this pain.

"I Would Die" (12.20.2013)

But the thing is, you don't.

What frightens is not Death,
it's having to emerge, the lone survivor,
from the burning wreckage.
It's remembering the closeness of the bomb,
the crash of concrete and the crush of brick.
It's breathing in the dust and rubble and saying,
"This is my home.
This is where I will live."

Strong (10.30.13)

But the truth is
that we are not made of stone,
merely covered by it.
This is how it grew there:
slowly and painfully, built by tears,
as the groundwater builds the stalactite.
We held still
as it embraced us
and did not run away.

Lessons Where You Least Expect Them

Today's lesson is brought to you by tea:

Sometimes, hot water brings out your best qualities and turns you into something strong and wonderful. But if you let yourself steep for too long, you'll become bitter.