A promotional blog for the works of Donaya Haymond, and also a celebration of writing, crafting, and other creative endeavors by the wider artistic community.
A fetus dies,
too great in size,
for the body to absorb,
it calcifies,
it petrifies,
to protect the mother’s core.
So no dead tissue
will issue
forth rot to poison her womb -
it can take years
without tears
before doctors discover the “tomb”.
And so I hope my heart
will start
to do the same, with aspects
so abject
of this whole wretched concept
of stability
in my fragility
with love and hope’s agility
but rather than so prone
to feel alone
I’d rather it turned to organic stone.
You fitted into me
strangely, but well, and I
saw you as jeweled beyond measure.
And I pushed you a way when
you cracked, fearing you'd break
further and faster, and that I would
shatter with the wedge of you in me.
I saved us from that.
But now I have a crevice that needs
and hungers, and I try fitting so many
many many many and they don't fit
will they ever fit?
I let myself stir, a little
from depths I regularly plumb.
And you were there and wrapped
in cheery alcoholic haze, and I wondered
if there was some place where I felt
as whole, as carefree, naturally as you seemed
to be from the liquor, where I'd stop missing her,
where I'd believe as hard as you do in Someone.
My therapist said they are delusions,
these ghosts that I believe haunt me
and that the “names” I hear whispered
are merely a child’s way of labeling the unknown.
Still, I cannot stop running, cramming my mouth
full of yellow cupcakes and fruit, yet never feeling full,
all food in sight devoured, making myself sick,
to calm me, to help me buffer the dread, give me fuel
to escape, to fly from them, the four neon ghosts
that meander through the maze of my life.
My wife suffers just as I;
differentiated only by clothing, not fate -
(she’s worn the same bow in her hair for longer than I can remember)
our estrangement from dual anguish tearing us apart,
even as our perditions are so similar.
We are trapped in our own labyrinths of darkness
trying to escape our personal hells, our Minotaurs,
our four private Horsemen of our own Apocalypse:
Inky, Binky, Pinky, and Clyde.
The earthquake caught her by surprise
she was asleep over her work, the legal papers
scattered, the tax forms piled, making her a pillow
(she had dreamed they were dead leaves)
and then the world broke open,
shook and shuddered, and in blind instinct
she dove, clutched at her head, huddled
balled-up and fetal, back to pre-birth to prevent
post death, and did not know what happened
for at least a few minutes after, until the world
regained some sanity and calm, until she realized
she was alive but trapped, pinned like the butterflies
she had wept for as a child when her big brother caught and killed
them to collect their pretty, iridescent husks,
as if stealing and hoarding empty shells were true love.
Trapped, lost to dust and smothered heat, but still a lit spark,
they would look for her, she hoped she prayed, they would find
rescuers would dogs would friends would know she were here
have the tools to find and save her, not give up till they reached her,
but meanwhile the air, so little air in this pocket
a barely-sufficient niche scooped out by a table with work that had been so important
now insignificant beside air (water and movement and food, soon too)…
She slowed her breath and thought of the still pool
memory of a Zen master she’d gone to when younger
who taught her to sit still and straight, think still and flowing
think of the pool not to be disturbed by petty worry
mindfulness of breathing, just the breathing, just the heartbeat
let it slow, control, transcend the moment –
the way you chew carefully to get full flavor, not gobble
the way you sink into a warm bath, not splash
the way you melt into an embrace, not grab –
the great Sufi mystic Jelaluddin Rumi, in the fifteenth century,
had once written, in his poems, concerning two types of breath
the breathing that is a shame and suffocation, and the other breath
love-breath, opening up, free, free even if the body is trapped
lost to dust and smothered heat, but it doesn’t have to die now
doesn’t have to die here, for if the mind can float freely what of a trapped body?
While the mind sails, though, ground the soul, keep it within
not ready for heaven, so much to do still, please Anyone Listening,
Anyone Seeing, please let her breathe, please let her think of mortal home not
immortal home, please let that be some other day, some other death
she wished for the light to come to her, rather than she to light
calmness was her friend, philosophy her teacher
meditation her medic, her nurse, her doctor, all-in-one until others could come
till there could be glad cries and sobs that another was saved
one fewer tombstone, one fewer body bag, one fewer casualty in the news
though she wanted to cry and fight, she knew it would kill her
exhaust her will, use up the air in her precious pocket,
so she forced herself to lie still, and dozed and prayed and breathed.
She wanted water before long, the one thing Jesus reportedly complained
about, thirst, such a simple thing, rather than other things he could have lamented,
his unjust martyrdom or pain, meanwhile she was obsessed by
an itch in her leg she could not scratch, thought about the money
she’d pay to scratch it, held back a laugh,
mustn’t court hysteria, must stay calm
breathe, breathe, breathe, let the mind float but keep the soul within,
slow, slow, slow, s-l-o-w, s—l—o—w—e—r
self-preservation, she must live for the sake of those who loved her,
she must live for the sake of the good she could still do,
the sights she could still see,
the lives she could still touch.
The love-breathing, not the panic-breathing, the still pool
in her mind, rationing each second still alive until resupply,
until finally, finally, finally, finally, finally please
she heard the scrape of shovels and the barking of hounds,
more than twelve hours since the earth went mad,
more than twelve hours since she woke from her dream of the forest,
more than twelve hours yet she was still alive and only moderately harmed,
all the breath she had desperately craved there for her,
she gulped it in immoderately at last, greedy for it, so glad
so very, very glad and relieved,
just to be
alive.
Written Halloween 2010, in ---- Psych Ward (Nonviolent, Temporary, Women’s)
It was All Hallows’ Eve, Samhain, Hallowee’en when the pills
helped me fall asleep despite the shhhnoisyshhh
which, it being 3 AM, means it is All Hallows
the day, itself, with spirits awake and walking
the way I am awake and wanting 48 hours enchanted away.
We don’t sleep well here on the best of nights
and one might think our own demons animate
us to mutter and toss, thrash and request
for sedatives from the front desk, the night shift –
nurses nursing coffees as they nurse us.
Cathedrals have gargoyles as sort of psychic
bodyguards, a demon on your side to frighten
the ones that would do you ill. In my current
illness I have an ugly bat-doll clutched by my side
hug-sized, looking alarmed enough for the both
of us so I can be calm, calm, thanks to the gargoyle principle,
thanks to the slow but reliable tick of time
towards the day, hour, minute my body is free as my spirit
sheltered by my plush gargoyle and a blanket of inky scribbles.
