Tomorrow (A Military Spouses Poem)

TOMORROW (a military spouses’ poem)

Tomorrow, we'll be up before dawn
Tomorrow will be the morning that haunts me
Tomorrow I'll go numb
Tomorrow, the color of my world will be grey
Tomorrow, I'll wish you could stay

Tomorrow, I'll lose my crutches
And it will take me a while to learn to walk correctly
Tomorrow, I'll walk on stilts while holding a weight in each hand
Tomorrow, my toes will be pricked with pins
And my finger tips will become needles
Tomorrow, my wingspan will grow
To cover and protect our nest
Tomorrow, I'll try my best

Tomorrow is the opening day
Of The Year of Loneliness
Tomorrow, I must put on a grand show
For the miniature spectators need to believe
It will all be okay, because every play
Should have a happy ending

Tomorrow, I will be impermeable
Tomorrow, I will shun the voices
Of soothers, and the well meaning kind
This pain is mine
One I refuse to share
And have a right to bear

Tomorrow, I'll start drawing X's in squares
And filling boxes with care
And I will wash my pillowcase every day
To wash the tearful mascara marks away
And I'll pray
And pray
And pray

Until tomorrow becomes the day
When I can
Stop counting
Stop crossing out squares
Stop carrying weights
Stop buying Kleenex in bulk sizes
Stop trying to stuff my love in a box

And have my toes and fingers back
And exhale
And you
Come back
To Us
To me.

~M.G.~

Writing through it...

My mentor and fellow writer, Alicia Anabel, took some time to workshop with me. We worked through my writers block. What did I realize? I write; it's just what I do. Sometimes I write from my own perspective, my feelings. But, a lot of times I try to put myself in the shoes of others and write from how they may be feeling. Or, I write from my experiences and how they affect and inspire me. My block was writing from MY pain. Writing from and through a painful feeling or experience leaves one incredibly vulnerable. It's like having a huge gash and leaving it open, susceptible to all kinds of mess. I tend to close the painful things off, not open them, not allow any mess in. It always heals, but it also always leaves a scar.

Today, I wrote a poem about deployment. My soldier is preparing to deploy to a not-so-friendly area, and I am not one bit excited about that. He's leaving, I'm staying. Each aspect of the transition carries stressful experiences. I decided to write through it, or at least scratch the surface of what I am feeling. A comfort in the whole matter is knowing that for each line I type, I KNOW there is some other military spouse out there who is feeling the very same way. It is a thread that weaves us all together, regardless of race, religion or region. So I write for myself, to purge and heal. I also write for my fellow spouses who feel these same things, but maybe cannot put it into words.

~LPS~