H to O

They became lovers
Within moments of first introduction
Never parted a single day.

She felt safe
With him
Never lonely
Or Misplaced.

He warmed her
When she was frozen.
Cooled her
When she burned like fire.
Tempted her
With his caresses.
Soothed her
When she was bereft.
Lapped up her tears
When she was maudlin.
Embraced her
When she was forlorn.
Comforted her
With his touch.
Kissed her
With his flowing essence.
Protected her
When she plunged to his depths.
Cherished her
When she danced in his embrace.
Supported her
When she floated upon his surface.
Tickled her
With his teasing fingers.
Brought her to ecstasy
With his pulsing rhythm.

Their passion never wavered.

He would always be her first
And most loyal lover.

© Kate Spyder 2014

I Stand Here

I’m not here alone in the aftermath of forever
I do not stand here for all to see
I stand here to feel the depths of my sorrow
And to carry the burden of our love.

You do not travel with me, nor care to hear my woes
You whisper malcontent and passion has left you hollow
You scream the bells tolling the hour
And angst being unknown to you in all your tomorrows.

What we believe is our own downfall
For it blinds us to all things seeming impossible
While our hearts rejoice smothered in deaths wake
As we slip into the aftermath we long to embrace.

What was our tomorrows
Is now and forever
Then forgotten
Left on the doorstep we have trodden.

Make us weep the joy of our sorrow
Make us scream the tears of our pride
Make us bow before the darkness of our passion
Make us bleed the seed of our making.

I do not stand here alone
I have with me what no one will believe
A part of you which never bleeds.

© Kate Spyder 2014

A Gift I’ll Never Forget

He touched me with gentle hands. A single finger that slowly traveled down my spine and up again, over my face and down again. Ceaselessly, tirelessly. Some would say, a lover’s touch. I might would say the same thing now, but I knew then it was the touch of a man who loved me, cherished me, and adored me.

I touched him in turn. Sliding my finger along the raised vein on his hand. Watching it disappear beneath my finger just to pop right back up as my finger passed along its length of blue-green color. His skin darkly tanned, gnarled knuckles like the knots on an old tree. He was beautiful even with the aging spots upon his leathery skin.

For as long as he lived with us, I spent as much time as I could with him. Watching him prepare the rinse he would use to wash his eyes out every night before bed. Or to sit with him and just let him touch me. It didn’t matter what we did together. He was the only one who touched me anymore. He was the only one who sat with me, actually talked with me. He seemed to understand, I needed nothing except him and the love he gave me. So I loved him back fiercely.

I missed him after my father, his son, pushed him away. I miss him still. It wasn’t until some four or five years later I heard of his death and only then by reading the announcement of his death that my father had wrapped within one of my Christmas presents. I wanted to scream at my father, yell at him for not calling me so I could have said my good-byes. Instead, I clamped my lips tight, held back my tears, closed the lid of the gift never remembering what else was in the box, only the announcement of my grandfather’s death.

Saying Good-bye

They were tears. She was sure they were tears falling down her face. As she looked around her, at all the people, every one of them looked the same. Sullen, sad, downcast, whatever words you want to use, but nary a single tear.

Why? Why was she the only one crying?

She looked up at her father. Looked around at her brothers. Looked up at her mother. They were all the same as all the others surrounding them.

Even her grandfather.

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop the tears. She tried to be like them. She tried. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop them, not until she felt her mother take her hand.

Her grandmother was there too, just not where one would expect their grandmother to be. She was there sealed in a beautiful shiny wooden box.

The last time she saw her had been over the weekend. Her dad had suddenly packed them all up in the car and taken them to his parent’s house, her grandparents.

She loved spending time with them, only this time was different. This time it was only her grandfather who met them at the door. When she asked where her grandmother was she was told she was in her bedroom, and that she was to stay out of the bedroom.

But when everyone was busy, she snuck in. She had to see her. She walked in, and walked around the bed to where her grandmother lay. She was dressed in her Sunday best dress. Even her shoes were on her feet. She looked like she was ready to just get up and go right to church.

But, she knew. She knew her grandmother would never get up again. She also knew what she looked at was only the shell that had held her grandmother. Her grandmother was no longer inside. She was gone and would never come back.

She didn’t cry then. She just stood and looked at her, knowing she still loved her. She was here to say her silent good-bye.

She didn’t stay long. She didn’t want anyone coming in and spoiling her time with her grandmother, chasing her out of the room, so she silently said her good-bye and quietly left the room. As she walked out she saw her grandfather and father letting in some men. She knew they were here to take her grandmother away.

A few days later, she was instructed by her parents to tell her teacher she would not be in school the next day since she had to go to her grandmother’s funeral. It wasn’t until after she told the teacher that she felt the hard lump in her throat so she asked to be excused to go to the restroom.

She sat alone in the restroom crying until a group of girls came in from her class and asked her why she was crying. She told them about her grandmother but she could tell many of them didn’t understand, especially didn’t understand why that would make her cry.

As she stood at the grave site watching them lower the shiny new wooden box into the ground, she looked around her at all the people without any tears and she wondered what was wrong with her. Why she was so different from all the others. Why she couldn’t be like them and not cry.

Where were you

Where were you
When I found myself
Looking up in the store
And all I saw were strangers all around,
And my fingers shook in fear
When I thought you had left me alone there.

Where were you
When tears ran down my face
As I stood alone surrounded by fate
In the midst of people with no faces
Who didn’t see death’s crate
Wrapping my grandmother in its cold embrace.

Where were you
When I ran from his touch
While I napped in his bed
Choking on the screams in my head
Wishing you saw me instead
Of the television that turned your head.

Where were you
When I needed a kind word
Instead of cruel uncertainty
Or a hug of reassurance,
Or acceptance instead of rejection
Or belief in me instead of the lies of others.

Where were you
As my heart broke
When you asked me to live with you
Instead of my mother
After all those years
Of never showing your love.

And all I could say was ‘no’.

Where were you
When I needed you
Where were you
When I loved you
Where were you
When I wanted to talk to you
Where were you
When I thought you were my hero
Where were you
When…

Why was it
The only time you
Held me
And told me
You loved me
Was in my dreams
After you were dead.

© Kate Spyder 2014

The only fool…

No one is ever a fool
for loving another
or for telling them so.

The only fool
is the one
who makes another
feel bad for doing so.

© Kate Spyder 2014

Slowly, Perpetually, Going Insane…

For the past three months I stepped away from almost all online activity other than checking my email and only searching for websites when something in my life required it. Not even any online chatting. Even phone calls to friends sort of took a nose dive into oblivion.

I took this time away to do some internal searching and evaluation. It was and is quite difficult to realize I am slowly, and quietly going insane while no one sees or cares.

I have no doubt I’m not alone in this evaluation however no one will admit it, even me, at least until recently. I wonder how long it will take others to finally admit it. Even if they do, I find no one broaches subjects that could possibly be hurtful. In fact, no one broaches subjects other than the politically correct niceties any more. Even the “Hi, how are you.” Is expected to be returned by “I’m fine thanks for asking.” While everyone knows it isn’t the truth but allowing the lie to convince them it isn’t a lie and gives them permission to ignore what is behind the façade.

There is something to be said for insanity. Insanity allows a person to say anything, even the truth while not hurting anyone, because everyone knows you are insane and that what comes out of your mouth is total nonsense to be shrugged off and ignored and whispered, “Do you see how crazy they are? It’s so sad.” While shaking their head and ignoring the truth of the statement.

In a larger part the world is perceived as insane so what goes on in it receives the same treatment as individuals of insanity. “Oh do you see how insane the world is? It’s so sad, especially for our children.” While shaking their heads and walking off ignoring all the truth around them.

I used to think I could change the world, but instead the world changed me. Made me cynical, distrustful, and doubt everything about myself and others. I used to think there was a man out there who would love me with so much depth he would fight for me. He would break down walls for me. He would show me that love really exists. But sadly I’m starting to believe that I believed in a lie.

And now I find myself slowly, perpetually, going insane.

Learning to Love Myself

I’ve had people tell me I am smart. I am intelligent. That I am strong. They envy me my independence and ability to stand up for myself and do what I need to do to make my life better for me and my daughter. But in all the years I have never told myself those things. I’ve never looked deeply at all the things I have done in my life and thanked myself for taking care of me.

I was strong enough to walk away from several potential sexual abuse situations and keep myself strong, but I never allowed myself to grieve over the loss of my innocence that those situations stole. I also never allowed myself to grieve over the loss of the loving relationships that had existed prior to the change those situations caused. I also never forgave myself for not seeing the danger.

I blamed myself for a lot of what transpired throughout my life even though they were things I could never control. I couldn’t control the anger my father presented to us nor could I control the lack of love expressed by any of my family members. The only thing I could control were my own emotions and my own responses to what was presented to me and unfortunately I buried them deep within myself. I have never forgiven myself for having made those choices. Instead I blamed myself and my family. Then when each and every relationship failed, I blamed myself and buried my feelings even deeper.

Then a couple months ago I saw the connection between how I related in relationships with how I was raised and though the light turned on, it only turned on half way. I chose to blame my parents for my failures instead of understanding I needed to understand that the way I handled relationships was my fault and not theirs and I needed to learn to forgive myself for what I perceived as my own failures.

I can continue to look back and blame everything on my past, but that would just keep me in my past and never moving forward. I could continue to allow my past to control me and never forgive myself but that would never open the door for me to have a truly loving and fulfilling relationship.

Instead, today I choose to find the things about myself that I like, love and respect and learn to forgive myself and love myself. I started by writing down those things I like and it was harder than I thought it would be. Someone told me to be gentle on self-judgements and that isn’t as simple as it might sound.  It is very difficult to not be hard on one’s self but I’m trying. I’m trying by looking at some of the more simple things I do every day for myself and my daughter that are done with very little thought behind them, but things I just do, not because they have to be done but because I like doing them. I enjoy doing them. Like waking my daughter up in the morning for school, even though it can be frustrating because she doesn’t want to get up, she reminds me of how I was at her age. Even though she has her own alarm and I am working on teaching her to be responsible for herself, I do enjoy seeing her wake and look at me and wrap me in her arms to give me my morning hug and kiss that welcomes our day. I just hope I can learn to love myself as much as I love her. Maybe someday with her help I’ll be able to do just that.

Change is Good

I feel like a baby beginning to walk again. That’s not bad mind you, just a bit disconcerting at times. I’ve been reading a blog “Earth Connections”. It is like one of those blessed books you find where every page, every sentence, every word seems to have been written specifically for you.

A day or so before I found “Earth Connections” I wrote the following, which I never finished, it was like it was waiting for something else.

It isn’t the dew on the grass that makes me feel this way. It isn’t the sun on the leaves either, nor their new colors before they tumble and fall to the damp grass.

I feel confused, and also excited. I feel blessed but also possibly cursed. I feel the strands of the nether reaching out to pluck at my happiness telling me it isn’t at all what it seems.

Maybe love is supposed to be quite ethereal. Or maybe it is just that I’m not really of this world but other worldly. What am I to think?

I don’t believe in God as other people do. I gave that up many years ago for it held a crap load of contradictions, and predispositions. I did not, I could not believe as they do, as the organized religions do. This is not me, and never has been no matter how hard I tried to bend, and mold myself into whatever form I could.

I tried bending and molding myself into that form for years and ignored the voice within. I am however finding it amazing how much I have come to understand intuitively even through all the years of trying to bury it deep underneath the organized church teachings.

So now I feel like a baby who is first learning to walk, looking out over the landscape and realizing nothing is outside of my reach, but not really knowing where to place my first step. Intuition tells me to focus inward to get in touch with my heart and spirit and all else will flow.

I’m not afraid of this new world that I can manifest. In fact I feel relieved. There is someone out there who has confirmed what I’ve intuitively felt my whole life.

Broken: The Voice That Sings

Part 1, Broken: The Beginning of the End

She did not sleep for the stars were not meant for her to rest but to gaze upon their beauty from beginning to the end. She didn’t care that there was pain. It vibrated. It sang to her. It wept for her until she had no more tears.

There wasn’t a sound she could hear not with any clarity. The sounds were all muffled by the screams in her head.

The joyousness that was her soul banged its fists upon the walls that she had built to contain it. She wanted to remember the joy not lose it forever in the miasma of her chilling soul. Trapped it was but trapped so she could not reach it but only gaze upon it and remember it had once been there and a part of her.

What did she know but the sum of all her experiences? The sum was more than its parts and yet less than the whole that was she. She could look at each experience, divide each experience into each of its parts, and divide the parts into infinity. And still she could not find the source of the message behind the feelings being said.

She walked in her mind and cursed in her soul, the sadness swamped and compelled an end they pulled out of her reach. They didn’t want her, not now, at least they said. Why they would not reveal and left for her to go unsaid.

She ignored the pain that screamed in her brain. The hands that pulled and prodded her. The voices that would not leave her. She ignored them all as she watched from afar. She looked upon herself a shade of what she once was and saw a tear roll down unnoticed.

Their energies were boundless. If not for them she would be gone whether those who had rejected her would accept her or not. This wasn’t what was supposed to be. And yet it bled with her very essence the essence that had been her from before time began.

She now understood, her life was to be, both pain and love never ending.

If she proved strong enough to grow within the pain received, walking away with joy abounding and life worth loving, her world would be forever free to receive yet again, the challenge.

They fought hard to save her, at first it had been just the two. She had seen them coming down the mountain road. Had almost turned around before seeing the signs put in their path. But they saw and now they fought to save a soul they never met.

She watched as they fought, seeing connections grow, at first just a shimmering fine web as if strung by a tiny spider between the three. He tried to find her but she hid too well, until he found the overflowing well. He sipped the waters of her love. Now she could not hide. He saw through the walls, the barriers she threw up, she ran and ran to no avail. Each turn she made, each door she opened, each room she entered he was there. Whispering. Pleading. Expressing his love.

When she looked again, hard burning chains of iron connected her to them, no amount of pulling, yanking, cutting or torching would destroy the chains connecting. They were not cold chains of steel, nor confining painful things. They flowed and ebbed, stretched and weaved fed by the wells of love.

She thought she could not bear to feel love again, to feel anything again. She never thought love could penetrate the searing pain that was her soul. She had been wrong. As she watched, the love flowing down the lines of connection began a process she had never thought she would see again. She resisted it but she was too weak to fight it for long. The voice that was her soul told her to surrender, to welcome the healing. She heard but did not heed. She listened but did not surrender. She felt and screamed in agony.

His voice sang to her, and she resisted. Their hands warmed her and she resisted. They were two who flowed to her as one and she cried for them to leave her.

Their strength was stronger than hers. They stayed regardless of her pleas. Their whispers told her they would never leave her. Their love was strong enough to carry her until she was strong enough to heal and still they would remain. Their hands caressed her no matter how far she pulled away. Their voices touched her regardless of how deep she descended. The one always found her and pulled her back surrounding her in their love.

She looked at her wells, one overflowing, the other having been empty but now slowly, ever slowly beginning to fill. She wanted to dump it out, to refuse what she saw, to know these two had found her well and sought to fill it. She had given up, this was supposed to have been the end. Not another beginning.

She drew back again and watched, now there were more. They worked and worked to extract her. The twisted metal being twisted and cut more until nothing trapped the body that had been she.

As they lifted her free, she gazed upon her body, saw it broken and bleeding, almost lifeless. Only the still pumping blood seeping from her wounds gave indication of life where all else looked lifeless.

One of the two stood and watched, the other knelt at her head, his voice always singing to her soul, binding her to him and then to them both. The connection between the two fed the connection between the three reinforcing the connection to her when it would start to weaken. How was this possible when she resisted with all her being? Who were they? Why were they so persistent?

She flew with her body, the one traveling with her, the other taking the mountain road. She sensed them both, no matter how far distant, the one by her side keeping the connection strong between all three.

She could no longer resist the darkness. It called her as she watched others join the ones who had taken her from the mountain and brought her to the place to be repaired. They wheeled her in a room the pain insignificant to the voice that sang to her soul to rest so the doctors could do their work.

She welcomed the darkness, praying it would swallow her forever.

©2013 Kate Spyder