I was lost in a fever dream last night 

He kept growling something so sweetly in my ear

what was it, what you said, I beg you to do it again..

A wish for him to want to look at me and forever be thinking about ways of making me orgasm.

A wish for my guy to want to only see me, instead of spending all his time online liking selfies and sexy or naked images of women that are not me. 

That's the thing

The thing is 

it’s just so many things 

yet we reduce the collective significance 

until it’s just the one thing 

whether it’s because it isn’t anything 

or simply because 

it's too many things

we make it smaller 

to make ourselves smaller 

making us a little easier for others to digest 

somewhere we decided 

we're too burdensome for another soul 

or maybe it was the fear of being dismissed 

therefore, dismissing the reality 

that it's just so many things

We cling to that one thing that's replaced all the things, because we wanted someone to understand, we wanted them to stay, to not become bored, to not let go of our hand, to not look away. And when their reaction to the one thing just isn't. We suffocate under the weight of all the things. 

That thing - was all the things, we just didn't know how to tell you all the things without all the things spiralling into all the other things which also led to worrying you would worry too much or worse - you would let go of our hand. 

And that is why it's just so many things, because there is no one here holding my hand.  And that's the thing.

You can tell someone your story, but it doesn’t mean that they have the ability to offer comfort understanding or comprehension. Sometimes it really is best to just keep things private and to yourself. 

Learn how to navigate your own thoughts and emotions without the need for anyone else’s understanding. Most people cannot comprehend the depths of why something moves you to feel the way you do anyway. It’s not their fault and you cannot force perception.

Focus on your own energy but remain kind. Everything will become clear and reveal itself in time, be patient with yourself.

I wanted to scream 

I wanted to cry

I wanted to not to have to grieve you

I wanted you to say that you were sorry

I wanted you to love me.. I was just a child

Instead I watched as life left your body and your eyes grew cold to meet death, .. and as your soul left this earth I held your hand, forgave you and said goodbye.

I don’t want this grief anymore, I don’t want to mourn you. 

MLC 2/18/25 2:37pm

I could feel my mother‘s eyes scanning me, looking me up and down, the disappointment unfurling at the corners of her lips. It wouldn’t have matter if the world had made me a Queen, I would forever be a disappointment to her. 

She compliments me, and for a moment I almost believe it’s a real compliment and then she tacks on a slick underhanded remark, and I am reminded she doesn’t dole out real compliments.

My dad is already uncomfortable, so I know she was laying into him well before they sat down with me. 

There’s a steady growing resentment bubbling beneath toward anyone that keeps telling me I should enjoy these moments while I still have my parents. I couldn’t help but wonder what their parents must’ve been like for them to enjoy moments like this, but I doubt this is normal.

Mom’s on a tirade about working and how no one helps and I need to do better and she’s got a long list of all my failures that she’s whipping out at an alarming speed and I am resisting the urge at every opportunity to lash back at her. She sounds and looks ridiculous getting louder by the moment and just sucking the life out of dad and I.

My mother wants so desperately to be one of the upper elite and I giggle to myself (but also out loud) thinking how miss prim and proper is losing it in the middle of a California pizza kitchen in front of everyone. Little miss manners has forgotten herself and doesn’t miss a beat noticing me laugh and strikes back with even more hellfire… even our waiter hears and quietly makes a detour after seeing mine and my dad’s face. 

I’m not listening to her now and my mind wanders off thinking I hope I never made my kids feel this way. She knows I have tuned her out and says my name and asks if I’m listening. My dad says “what” in an attempt to be playful, and also because he can’t hear, he’s desperately trying to get her inline in a hushed way and she unloads on both of us launching into how awful her life is and details her laundry list of why she’s so much better than anyone else and that book is stacked high. 

The high school girls at the table next to us can hear her biting remarks and one leans in to the rest of her table whispering to the others. I look at my mom and think this isn’t what I came here for and I’m over her bullshit already. I seize the opportunity to respond letting her know this isn’t the time and place, but I will gladly meet her with the same level of disrespect because I don’t care about the onlookers that she is finally starting to realize are watching. 

She regains her poise and thankfully bread is delivered to the table, the waiter can read the room and is efficient, he simply states the food will be out shortly and walks off momentarily before returning with our drinks. I watch my mom tear into the bread - she abstains from bread as part of her routine fasting - so I know she’s losing it. 

At this point I am thrilled I ordered a mango sangria, because clearly I’m going to need a drink to get through lunch. Dad and I cheers to mom’s recovery for her procedure and she grabs her berry sangria and clinks her glass to ours, overstating how important she is and how she needs to wake up from her procedure on Tuesday. 

She’s still rattling on about how unfair life is and in the middle of all her fatalistic nonsense she drops real news and I learn I’m going to be an auntie again, my brother and his wife are having another baby, a boy. She looks at my dad and reminds him that he has no grandsons bearing his name and thank god the golden child will ensure that my dad’s legacy lives on. 

Of course I am excited until she follows up with how he is a staunch republican and his wife is a bleeding liberal. A slice of news I didn’t know, having never met my brother’s wife and immediately make a comment about knowing my brother is normally so resolute in needing similar values. My dad giggling at the comment and rolling his eyes at the same time. And for a moment I think we may actually get to enjoy lunch… but mom’s all over our momentary relaxed and disarmed state and comes back swinging with her immediate harsh comparisons and pure malcontent for the smiles.

I’m over it now and I no longer care that I have been baited. I decide to try and change the subject by answering a question they both had asked about work. So now they’re both drilling me about how I should consider going back to my prior employer for a lot more money and health benefits. I shut them down stating I don’t like making money off people I should be helping and at the end of the day I need to feel good about what I do and am staying where I can make a difference in a world hellbent on skimming the pot and profiting off others misery. I like what I do, I am good at it and I like my boss and where we are headed. I’m happy with this comment and my commitment to my chosen career path but it’s poorly timed has irritated both my parents as they’re both quick to remind me that my boss let me go for a month when business slowed down and they take turns dredging on about how I need to think about my future when my youngest child finally leaves home. I need to save so I don’t have to work at 85 or 78, and how I need to put money aside. They’re not wrong but they forget I don’t aspire to be one of the jones’s living the rat-race. I want a modest life. I want respond respectfully though, acknowledging they have a point but this is what I am doing and I am not going back to my prior employer. My mom takes this moment to enlighten me on what a failure I am and how I need to have money to help them, damned my single parenting and the fact that I have little to no money left over after bills, let alone for me to get my nails done (which she remarks look terrible) I let her know it’s not a priority, I do my own nails and I am still raising one of my kids and he needs stuff because he’s a growing young man, she backfires that it’s always the daughters job to care for her parents and that my youngest is all but out the door. I volley back n forth in my mind for a second and politely let her know I have plenty of friends who take turns with their siblings caring for their parents. This enrages her, so I change the subject because I know the shadow boxing will escalate. I let them know that my oldest is driving with his family to their new home in Virginia today and how proud I am and happy they have this opportunity. They knew before I did… so instead of being happy she returns with more poison but this time she thinks I’m going to listen to her prattle on in negativity about my kid and that isn’t going to happen. No. 

I am fully engaged and debating her and trying to shut her down before she takes it too far… and my dad steps in and says “goddamnit this is not why we’re here today and you both need to stop because you’re both out of line and I’m about to get up and leave.” He looks at me and says “you don’t have to respond to every fight she picks,” and looks at her and says “that’s enough this isn’t the time and place for this shit now stop.”

He’s right and I immediately apologize. It’s an awkward moment of silence and the waiter comes with the check, the bill gets paid and we get up to leave. Mom wants to take me to her favorite store and buy me a top and dad wants to sit down somewhere far away from us and let us go on without him. 

I wish I could say I enjoyed the shopping experience but I didn’t, she kept right on but while walking through the shop carefully looking over clothes all while continuing to debase me. I remind her this isn’t the time or place and walk away to peruse a gorgeous little cardigan with a belt, she grabs it and says let’s go I’m getting it for you and we struggle with having to ring ourselves up and remove the electronic tags on the embellished little jacket she’s chosen for herself and my cardigan. We begin laughing wondering how such an expensive store could want their patrons to have to ring themselves up and there’s not a soul in sight to ask for help except the security guard monitoring the women at the kiosks making purchases. I think we are united on the same front for a moment and we leave to gather dad from the spot he’s sitting. She wants to go look at makeup in another big expensive store and I don’t want to go so dad and I sit down to watch people and talk.

He apologizes to me for my mother and says “she’s angry, she’s mad at the world.” “She just took on a new job that is part time but not her element”, he goes on that she’s been angry and I get the sense she’s been lighting him up for not being able to afford her the lifestyle he worked so hard to give her his whole life, and his pension isn’t enough to let her get her nails and hair done. So he told her if she wants those things she will have to get a job but she hates the job and it really is both their fault because they didn’t save up for retirement.

He says he made a few mistakes and some bad financial choices and now she thinks it’s mine and my brothers responsibility to take care of them, but she knows we can’t she just wants to think one of us can afford to and the one that could’ve helped (the golden child) is having another baby that they may not get to see. He says he’s only met his granddaughter once for a half hour last year and she’s already a year old. He says he keeps telling mom it’s their fault that they didn’t save and instead chose to have the finer things and take trips and buy nice cars and live where they couldn’t really afford, so now she’s mad at the world and won’t listen to reason. He says he’s tired and he feels his mortality looming and mom’s feeling her mortality and his mortality and she’s just angry and not to take any of what she says seriously. 

I grab my dad’s hand and tell him I love him and that I will try to help however I can, and he says “no - let your mom figure it out, if she wants to run herself into the ground and not listen then that’s on her.” “But dad, it spills over onto all of us too if she’s acting like this and throwing daggers at everyone. Plus. You’re excusing her behavior and I love her but no one has the right to be an asshole to everyone and I’m not going to take her bullshit.” He laughs and says “I know you won’t, you’re a fighter for injustice and you have no fear of anyone or anything. But your mom is going to hurt your feelings if you wage this war with her if you continue to be baited and engage with her. 

This was my dad’s way of asking me to put down my sword for him. I obliged and said, “how about ‘we’ make more plans then?” I try to talk a little again about the gun show happening this weekend, I asked if we could go together. I don’t think he’s up for it, he’s definitely feeling run down. I speculate he will not be calling me in the morning to tell me we’re driving to the fairgrounds. Maybe he just wants to go by himself, I respect that too. 

Mom’s on her way back to us and he tells me to “sit up straight..” I had not even realized I was starting to relax and was leaning against the table, “your mom would hate to see you sitting like that.”