The Whole Cookie

One of the few great men

“You don’t know what you don’t know.”
One of the wisest lessons I’d ever learned.

Bill was 86 years old when I first met him last March. The week of his 87th birthday he was placed in an acute assisted living facility. He had terminal brain cancer and it had spread down to his neck. For 3 months we went to visit him on Mondays like clockwork. During the last 6 weeks of his life he was in and out of what we knew as his reality, but he seemed almost peaceful when he spoke often times those nonsensical words.

He sat in his wheelchair, weak of energy, yet that sheepish grin of his emerged out of nowhere. His eyes still had life in them, but he would seemingly look right through me as he spoke. It was obvious to me that he was living in this realm, but crossing over simultaneously. Most days he was talking to his mama who had left this earth sometime ago. The conversations were real to him and heartwarming to witness.

Bill had lived the last nearly 40 years as a sober man. He was committed to making amends even in his final days. His devotion to The Lord was obvious when he shared stories with me now and then. He was a straight shooter and as honest as a man could be. Up until he took his last breath, he still had plenty to say.

When his pastor came to see him one last time, Bill asked once more if he believed that God was going to let him into his kingdom. With complete assurance the pastor told him without a doubt and with all certainty He was. He has been missed since that final day. I’m grateful he’s no longer hurting and has found peace and contentment in his own heart, but selfishly we all wish he had more time.

I will never forget the unspoken words that he conveyed to me with just his gentle smile and a shake of his head every time he asked me something about my life. He was a lovable, kindhearted man with such conviction that he stood proudly on. I thank God for the moments I was blessed to have those conversations with you sir.

Rest easy my friend. My promise holds that I will help your lovely bride for as long as she needs me.

God bless your soul…

Chasing positivity

Reflection over my life so far, I’ve learned to run after a positive mindset. Greatly wanting to live this way, but always battling with it. I can give kudos and be outwardly uplifting with an abundance of encouragement, for you. This is who I am. This is what I do. But what about me? Where is that self care and love component to gift myself?

They tell me self forgiveness and acceptance is how I will achieve this. Then I go down the rabbit hole where the misery lives. It’s dark and damp, with cobwebs and it kind of smells like death. I don’t purposely fall down in there. I do allow others to trample my heart and that’s when I find myself climbing out yet again.

So far spending time getting reacquainted with me has been both enlightening and disappointing at the same time. Regret is not a common word in my vocabulary. I’ve enough emotional recovery and healing to understand the positive influence every experience has had on my spirit. Then I tend to combat it with a negative connotation because this is how I have been conditioned. Trained out of deserving peace and comfort, even joy. At least on a more often than not basis. That can be debilitating and quite depressing.

I’ve come to dislike those positive memes. Don’t send me the rainbows and unicorns with puppies and kitties telling me to have a bright sun shiny day. Those don’t resonate with me. I need to know that I’ve walked through some hard fucking shit and I am a survivor. In other words, remind me how far I’ve come and that I am ok!

I know this too shall pass and all the other quirky slogans I’ve learned and implemented into my everyday living, but most days I simply need to just be authentically me. A craft I have yet to perfect and likely never will, but my ultimate goal… to be comfortable in my own damn skin. Finding that balance between my own satisfaction and happiness while participating in this event called life. Is it always going to be a chore or will I wake up one day and everything will magically just smooth out? I highly doubt that and I am curious to know the antidote. Meanwhile I will just keep on keeping on, loving you with my whole heart as I work to gift this to myself.

✍🏼🧝🏻‍♀️

The battleground where you play

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I cried a solemn tear as another decided to join. A flood fell from my eyes, few of them have fallen over these past 2 years, I just hadn’t realized.

I’ve been holding my breath forgetting now and then. Relearning not to stuff things down, that life will begin again.

Today we sat in a formal court of law and chaos, only to have it postponed a dreaded 3 more months of hell. I glanced over in disbelief with the days passing by in jest.

Not knowing you’ll take yourself with you everywhere you go. Escaping is your game, haunting you in the night the demons start to glow.

Such a coward in a withering state. How did you convince me of so many horrid things? Running swiftly from your trap through the once locked down gate.

Faster I go till I reach the other side. My tear stained cheeks, no sacred place to hide.

I hate you for all of the things you’ve done. The torment you placed deep within, I battle it everyday. But more than that I despise who you’ve become.

You’ve disappointed me repeatedly, making me gasp. Unclench your fingers wrap them around your own neck. I’m reaching out for freedom in a world that I can grasp.

I fought to hold on
Now I battle to let go
Your presence inflicts residue
Your absence reflects turmoil

What a fucked up mind
Wreckage created by you
All you’ve left behind
There’s nothing more I can do
You’ve hurt me for the last time

✍🏼🧝🏻‍♀️

Unraveling

She was tenacious when it came to believing what she thought she needed, and that was him. Far beyond their expiration date and her tolerance of his neglect and torment she clung. White knuckling the life she fantasized, the tighter her grip, the more relentless he became. The addiction cycle prevailed as the destruction and demise ensued.

Breathing had transformed into a chore, labored and choking. His twisted beliefs ravaged her every thought, move and decisions that were no longer hers to make. He had devoured her and she was consumed. Her immediate response to his touch, his words and especially his body language, was to never disappoint him while completely betraying herself.

She had found herself tethered to this neurotic, sadistic human, whom she would discover was really an empty, wounded, broken shell. His pain inside ignored heightened his desire to inflict it upon her. Emotionally, physically and especially psychologically as he pulled her cuffs tighter, his noose around her neck cinched as she gulped. She was his kept property.

How could she break free of the restraints and stay by his side? She could only dream, and that’s all she ever did. Her body was not her own. She had long since detached from it. How else could she endure this life she found herself in?

He was good at this game. Distracting her from her own mind. Convoluting his words while mincing them with his actions. Was she crazy? Could he be right? Did she not hear what he truly meant? Her brain on fire as she worked to read between the transcripts of their one sided conversations. He’s a bully, she thought to herself. More than the mean kid on the playground. Is that where it started with him? She wondered.

She struggled daily to analyze the two of them. Her heart longed for what it could never receive. Her brain constantly reconciling with what was happening. Maybe he’s right. She is the broken little girl inside after all. She must be the one who needs fixing so she will continue to abide by his every rule and expectation of her. Keep working for his love, attention and affection is what she told herself.

This ball of yarn, tattered and worn, had become her sacred space to cling to now. Somewhere, deeply within it, was holding her hope. How will she find it and retrace her way back? She knows she has battle scars and wounds running deep. She didn’t come out of this unscathed, but going from victim to survivor has been her only goal these days. She’ll keep talking and writing until that skein is down to its last bit of what has her bound still. Until then, she’ll do what it takes to unravel the mass of devastation. His secretive ways being revealed, unveiling them for her sanity, saving her soul.

✍🏼🧝🏻‍♀️

Transformative

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She tells her truth no matter what
It’s how she was raised and what she was taught

Don’t begrudge her by hushing her now
The spectacular voice has become a deafening roar

You thought you could keep her silently in fear
Listen to her now watch her soar see her sneer

What was so damaged that you couldn’t mend
How lucky for you she sought you to be a friend

Taking everything selfishly for your greed
Look at her as she forms her own creed

Take your rightful place beneath her feet
She wipes her shoes upon you never by defeat

How proudly she stands so poised with a beam
Eloquently she whispers it’s my time to dream

✍🏼🧝🏻‍♀️

A girl and her bird

Once upon a time, in her darkened little world
A hummingbird swooped down and asked, “what’s wrong little girl?”

A sigh so heavy lifted from her chest
Grinning at his twirling wings he settled in the nest

A hush washed over her as she felt him say
Everyday I visit here and you never go astray

She was a loyal friend to most everyone she knew
She felt an old betrayal find its way out of the blue

I watch from high above peaceful and distracted
I wondered what caused your heart to be fractured

A warm smile and a gentle shrug with her shoulder
He is her brightest light these days as she gets older

She knows he is here to whisper sweet praise
Up and away her glances turn into a gaze

This too shall pass little one wait and you will see
Keep doing the next right thing and you’ll be completely free

Little movements will create great victories
String them together to tell your new stories

Looking down at her hands lying open on her knees
She feels the air stir and the coolness of a breeze

What he says she knows in her heart
Each day is an opportunity for a fresh start

✍🏼🧝🏻‍♀️

Retracing her steps

A big stretch up to the sky as dawn kisses her cheek. Good morning she says, aloud to the silence. She greets each day with a grateful heart. Deep breath in and a long exhalation of the past that sometimes haunts her still.

With another gift, an abundance of love, she questions the validity of her life. Her purpose she thought she once knew, rendered obsolete, nothing was true. Being reminded by this fragrance and that special place, letting go isn’t so easy, but necessary to keep on breathing.

Today is less about the loss of what was as more emphasis is put on the freedom she is reluctant to feel, but now is. She watches them while she sees the light flicker in their eyes. Others who pay her the attention she was always instructed to ignore. She smiles back at them now and then, yet inside, deeply feeling rejection towards all.

Too soon or too late, she is where she is, growing and learning simply wanting new friends. No longer seeking that white knighted, makeshift alpha or fake savior. Becoming comfortable with her own company while she continues to blossom and bloom. They don’t understand, although some say they do, that her completeness comes from the brokenness within.

✍🏼🧝🏻‍♀️

It’s not rejection, it’s God’s protection for the wrong direction…

Into the night she ran
not knowing how she got there
or when it all began

Faster her legs took her
far from it all
it’s all such a blur

Stopping to catch a breath
smiling to herself
saved from her own death

Feeling so alone now
she knows the faithful One
she hits her knees to bow

You rescue me time and again
I feel Your strength
rising from within

As she rose to her feet
His presence comforted her
surrendering without defeat

✍🏼🧝🏻‍♀️

Checkmate

In the dark corners of my mind
a twisted thought evokes
but not your typical kind

Etched upon my brain
rolling around as I lash about
running to escape the pain

Such a fucked up system
he sits up there feeling superior
boastfully believing in his own wisdom

I stare over to you sickened by your frame
while the hustle and bustle strangle the air
I finally realize this has all just been a game

I’m the pawn that suffered beneath you
the queen really yet you were never a king
this plot is almost over with one thing left to do

Those shackles I once wore
place them on you now
never again will I be your little whore

Spin it around as you begin to fear
I’m the one seeking pleasure this time
walking away I turn to see you leer

So much hate burning from your flesh
how agonizing it must feel
never a moment to rest

Run away far and wide
it always catches up
there is no place to hide

I’ve taken the reign
who’s controlling who now
the true master inside this brain

don’t cross me evermore
in the end I will win
the truth will show

I’ve withstood and fallen down
from that grave I arose
buried alive you couldn’t keep me underground

Staring out at the smoke filled sky
imagining what my life will finally look like
as I silently whispered to you a final goodbye

✍🏼🧝🏻‍♀️

Stronger for it

You set the pace in this rugged little rat race
I turned for a moment stuck in the torment
This seductive game I couldn’t be contained
Shrewd yet so weak pretending I was meek
Calling your bluff in your ridiculous cuffs
Rolling my eye no more tears left to cry
Pathetic to any shunned by many
Digging your way down buried underground
I laugh at you now with your furrowing brow
Disapproval lashing about fuck off hear my shout
This battle is over the war won covers me in clover
Flourishing in joy no longer your ragged little toy
Dead soul torn apart what once held your heart
You’ve lost much more than I gave you credit for
Etched upon my brain your turn to feel such pain
It all began with you telling me nothing ever true
Blood boiling red your skin peeling so to shed
Addiction is your enemy but I however am set free
Taunt me more believe what you don’t know
Hell is where you reside not a soul on your side
Only in the wake of your demise you fall not rise
Me on the other hand unstoppable taking a stand
Tell me again once more with conviction
about honor respect and love
Oh wait that’s right yours is only a contradiction
You taught me more than I ever bargained for
Let me praise Him for pushing me out the door
Stop listening to his demands
Only the righteous One commands
The world will shout but the Man whispers about
“Get off his back
Get out of God’s way
Get on with your life”
Get it? Got it? Good!