A gift

A Gift- 10/28/19

You are a gift to me.
Your strength gives me
courage.
You have always led the way,
in my darkest times,
You have tried to share your light.
You are my beautiful brillant
big sister and a gift to me.

You are my younger brother
and have also been there by my side.
Your wicked humor
is wonderful
and you can always make me laugh.

You have a maturity beyond
your years. You are also a gift to me.

The three of us share
the loss now
of both parents.
But I am so lucky to have you both.
We will get past the loss and the pain
because the three of us are still
together.

new birthday

i feel like i really need

I feel like what I really really want

is a new birthday.

A redo-a do-over

A piece of imperfection

a new salvation

a new creation

a new birthday-

i think i want this

THE Most of ALL.

Not enough

Not enough-

Dec 26th, 2014

Friday Afternoon 2:49 EST

Not enough

Never enough

Not enough

sleep.

Not enough,

to eat.

Not enough,

to touch the sky & kidnap the Sun.

Not enough, to learn how to fly,

just enough to become

untied

undone.

Not enough to reach outwards and find it.

Not enough to reach out, and grab the happy

right off someone else’s face,

because my happy

its become erased

misplaced

lost confusion.

It’s just not enough,

to fix up this place.

It’s not enough to straighten

this room, to clean between the cracks, to sweep

a broom across this dusty room

deep inside my minds eye.

Not enough,

to touch the sky & kidnap the Sun.

Not enough, to learn how to fly,

just enough to become

untied

undone.

It’s not enough to

try to run, to sprint, to finish

the race.

I’m fresh out of lungs

the air is too sharp, cold and dry-

It’s not enough,

to just sit here

waiting for you

to get home.

It’s not enough, to be a failure as a housewife,

to be a successful lunatic

with a Masters Degree

and no job prospects.

It’s not enough

to be a crazy person,

living on SSDI, it’s not enough, to always

live in someone else’s shadow

it’s not enough

to be the ghost

you can come home

and answer too.

Don’t you understand?

My wings may have melted, because I flew

too closely to the Sun

but I have dreams too.

I do not long to be

someone else’s

no one.

The Firecracker

The Firecracker-10/02/14

Thursday 1:51pm EST

The clock stands still

at 2 O’Clock.

I feel the crispness of the Fan.

As I silently wait for her.

The one who buys groceries,

in her sixty-ish skin,

fraile yet forever,

frisky.

 

She’ll carry all of them,

in by herself-

if I don’t wait to greet her.

 

Her-She-She is,

the One

with Ab-fib,

history of heart attacks, high blood pressure,

diabetes type 2 and even more…

 

But despite all of that,

She’s a Spitfire.

Do not Ever,

underestimate her.

 

She’s stubborn,

like a shotgun.

She is solid like granite,

although she bears a few

cracks.

 

The clock stands still

at 2 O’Clock.

I feel the cool crispness

of the Fan.

 

And I plan

to remain here,

sitting silently

waiting,

 

for my husband’s Mother,

to come bursting through

the front door

like a firecracker.

 

(sidenote: just 2 hrs after I wrote this poem, I caught her outside attempting to mow our lawn. I yelled to her She shouldn’t do that that She knows she is not supposed too. Ignoring me, She did the 1/3 of the backyard she could manage and came inside for a nap. When I complained to my husband he just laughed at me….)

Not my circus, not my monkeys…

An old proverb
has been circling the
cybersphere lately…
Not my circus, not my monkeys.

I ponder its meaning.
As I re-examine
lost souls in my life.

sometimes the drama
is much too great
much too overwhelming
to engage in.

Not my circus, not my monkeys.
As I imagine cotton candy
high wire acts, a circus of
clowns.

Sometimes you can care
for a person quite
a lot but you do not
wish to go down the dark
hole of a tunnel
within them.

You try to lend
a helping hand
to lead them out of their darkness.

but as you try to grasp
for them their hand
just disappears and vanishes
into deep depression.

and its like a tornado
has a hold of them
and they are trying to
pull you down with their ship
like someone who is
only interested
in drowning.

and then you whisper
shellshocked,
not my circus.
not my monkeys.

a sinking feeling

a sinking feeling by Emily Sturgill 6/24/14

a sinking feeling
as the ship goes down,
and your leaving for work
as you kiss me goodbye

all I see on your face
is anger and hurt.

a sinking feeling
as the ship goes down,
your disappointed in me
once more again

somehow, some way I
have let you down again.
and there is no time
for words or apologies.

a sinking feeling,
as the ship goes down,
I can see with one look
your angry with me

a sinking feeling
as the ship goes down,
I do not even have or own
the magical words

of saying I’m sorry,
because you do not share
whatever wrong I’ve done.
this day is off to a rocky start.

a sinking feeling
as the ship goes down,
with one angry look
you cracked my heart.

split it halfways
like two sides
of a cracked raw
egg yolk.

a sinking feeling,
as the ship goes down,
as I sit here in a precursor to all my tears,
I know you’d throw me overboard in a second

hoping that this time
I would splash, sink, sputter
and finally
drown.

as the ship goes down.

Cold Coffee

Cold Coffee-5/23/14

Coffee’s getting cold.
As I sit here,
thinking
Bold…
Color combinations upon
a broken painter’s palette.

Coffee’s getting cold.
As I sit here,
feeling old…
nothing is so fleeting
as Life is Stealing
years and years from Us All,

beginning each and everyday
the thief of time
steals of years away.

but I regress…
Coffee’s getting cold.
Black liquid velvet dripping
into a cup, a cup that holds
love.

This coffee cup
from which I sip
once belong to my long-dead
Mother.

I treasure it because
it was once hers.

But Coffee’s getting cold,
as I just sit here
thinking
drinking black coffee
thinking my life away

piece by piece
word by word
poem by poem

a whisper in
the wind
lies unheard.

but…

Coffee’s getting cold.

My Mama when she was young

Mothers Day

Mothers Day-
5/8/14
by Emily Sturgill

I feel
the pressure
of your hand
on
my forehead still…
to see if I was sick with fever.

The pressure
of your fingertips
lingers lightly
on my head.

Oh, what I would give!
Just to wake up one day
and learn your no longer
dead.

The memories,
are merely moments
I shared with you.

Years, Years, and Years
ago-
many many moons ago-

If only I knew,
how quickly
moments, and memories
disappear…

I would have pulled you tighter
and held you near.
really regretting all
the fights we once had.

And,
I wonder if your
in heaven
and
are you still mad?

The journey towards forgiveness

I do not usually post blog-style confesionals. I’m much more of a poet, than anything else. In fact in addition to my poetry online, I have been keeping multiple journals at home and handwritten. One is more private confessional journal type enteries and the other is mostly poems, ideas, and sometimes tarot readings I give myself or lists of things to do or lists of music playlists.

HERE…is mostly just where I share poems, unless I am all fired up. Today, I am all fired up and I think its vital to share because it might help others to move forward.

I am all fired up about the notion of forgiveness. In theory, I do believe it is better to forgive even if not forget or forgive ANd forget-whatever works best for you. But in practice I find this to be a slippery slope. i struggle very much on how to forgive, when to forgive and how to let go. Honestly, I hold horrible grudges. And they are horrible in truth because mostly they only serve to hurt me-myself-nobody else.

All that angry righteous high horse b.s. I desperately hold onto-a sense of who iswrong and who is right? Honestly, it does not serve me much any longer-in fact it wears me down, makes me feel guilty and mad, like an angry hornet shook lose from its nest.

so today, I was with my hubby and we were at the bookstore out of nowhere i spotted like the ideal book and he bought it for me with a couple other items. This book is called, “The forgiveness formula: how to let go of your pain and move on with Life.” It was on sale at barnes and nobles-only$6.98-hardcover-by author Kathleen Griffin. @2004.

I am only on pg 16 so far but this book is exactly what i needed to hear at this time. i am in fact blown away.I am just writing about this because forgiveness can be ajourney-a pathwy-towards feeling lighter-less burdened. And in my heart, i realize it is not an easy thing to forgive. That more folks than just myself struggle with it. Holding onto the past so tightly it only distorts your vision of the present moment and it poisons the well of your future happiness. This seems true to me.

Someday I really hope I can learn to forgive, hopefully sooner than later because all this angry i hold deep down inside-it only strangles me-making it harder to breathe making it harder to reign into my sanity. I realize i am not the only sufferer out there but by refusing to allow forgiveness its like picking a scab, bruised and bleeding-the wound will not heal. I know I will not heal either. By the way, I highly reccommend her book-so far its very good.

The sounds of Sleep

He is sleeping

with him he is carrying

the sounds of Sleep.

 

There is a song to his

sonorous sonnet of snoring.

It is calming to listen to it.

 

He is sleeping

deep and wide,

I imagine he is dreaming

but he rarely shares these to me.

 

Like most my dreamer usually

does not recall his dreams.

I like to hear his snoring

years ago it once bothered me.

 

But now I find it precious,

that the man I love so much

is peacefully getting his

much needed rest.

 

It is relaxing to hear,

his breathing reminds me

of oceans breaking upon the shore.

It is a soothing sound, calming and gentle.

 

The sounds of him sleeping

remind me how lucky I am

to have this man I love

with me still here.