I Cried

 Today my panic was so bad I wanted to die. 

But I didn’t.

I cried. 

I went to goodwill to find discarded and broken things to bring home and 

restore.

I cried.

I when to Home Depot and collected all the broken pieces of plants to come home and fix.

I cried.

I created a temporary pond for the literal thousands of tadpoles currently living in the pool. 

I cried.

 I pulled over on the side of the road and fed crows peanuts.

I cried.

I talked to my daughter, spent time with my son, and yelled at my partner for his neurotic behavior. 

I cried.

I asked for help when I needed it.

I cried.

I washed dishes and cleaned the microwave.

I cried. 

I cried, literally all damn day and I made it, feel your feelings!

I Hate it Here

 It’s been two years tonight since the worst moment of my life. 

While my life has been full of trauma and chaos, not a single moment prepared me for the moment I got the call my son had been shot or the hours I spent thinking he was dead due to news reports and a hospital’s failures. Not a moment prepared me for the panic that sits in my everyday. 

People tell me to be grateful he made it, and I am. But now I know. Now I know on the most ordinary of days, in the safest of places, my babies can be taken from me. I am also always scared. My phone never rings without my heart skipping a beat. I never see an ambulance or fire truck or flashing lights and stay calm. I have yet to sleep through the night. I carry a rage over my pedophile ex husband and his wife’s actions, or lack thereof, that scares me. I often choose drunk over panic. I’m heavy and have lost many who could not carry the weight. I have walked away from those who could in guilt of my presence. I don’t know where to go from here. 

I’ve always been able to take broken things or moments and make something beautiful. But this, all of it, it’s something that should not exist. It is poison. Its very presence causes harm. And I can’t make it go away. I’ve tried. I’ve tried to exhaustion. I hate it here.

The Glitter That Would Not Leave

 The Glitter That Wouldn’t Leave

No one warns you that blood can glisten like glitter.

That it hides in the cracks, clings to your skin,

and shows up when you least expect it—

on your hands, on the steering wheel,

when all you wanted was to drive away from it all.

No one tells you the smell of it—metal and memory.

No one tells you how gunshots echo long after the sound is gone.

How they make your ears bleed in ways doctors can’t see.

How the burn of a bullet isn’t just for the skin—it brands your soul.

I scrubbed a car that wasn’t just a car.

I touched doors that still held the shape of their fear,

fingers and palms etched into the paint like a silent scream.

I was left to clean it,

to breathe it in,

to carry what they left behind.

And it stayed.

In my hands.

In my nose.

In my sleep.

No one tells you this part—

because if they did, they’d have to sit with the horror of it, too.

And so I carried it alone.

But I am saying it now:

I saw it. I touched it. I bled in ways no one saw.

And I release it.

Not because it doesn’t matter—

but because I matter more than the stain.

I The Coloring Book, Revisited

You colored me in soft blues and greens,

Hard purples and reds.

Little black specks, to accentuate my most precious places.

You blurred the colors together. . .

so it is hard for me to see...

who it is,

I am,

anymore. . .

The edges of my body,

the outline for your work.

The insides forgotten

as you busied yourself coloring. . .

If only it were beautiful.

If only you had just torn out this page.

 

But He—

 

He saw the smudges and the bleeding edges,

traced every bruise like a sacred map.

He didn’t tear the page—

He turned it.

 

Where you left chaos,

He brought color.

Where you broke me,

He began to rebuild.

 

With golden light,

He lifted the shadows,

stitched the torn canvas

with threads of purpose and flame.

 

Ashes gathered in His palms,

and from them,

He painted wildflowers.

He made beauty bloom

in places I thought were only

wreckage.

Now—

these lines,

these wounds,

they speak.

 

They speak of survival,

of a hand that never let go,

of a love not built on pain

but on promise.

 

You called it the end,

but He calls it the beginning.

And I—

I will rise,

a masterpiece still in the making,

formed by fire,

carried by grace,

and alive with purpose.

 

Customer Service Voices

 As most know my current role involves clinical quality assurance. Essentially I listen to crisis calls and provide feedback, education, support to other counselors.

I also have had humans in my own world be frustrated with me when I use my “customer service voice.”

I can tell you with 100% certainty that a counselor, or myself, are never ever using that voice or tone out of anger, spite, frustration, or anything negative. 

I can also tell you with 100% certainty that when I hear this tone I know this person feels overwhelmed, exhausted, scared, unsure, lost. They are fighting through heartache, exhaustion, and tears to show up anyway. They want to be kind when the world is not kind to them. They want to be a place of rest when home and peace are lost in that moment to them.

They are trying. The alternative is allowing those awful feelings and moments to take over, to be sharp, unkind, unloving. And so they take a deep breath and say hello and pray the next syllable hides their brokenness.

Nothing is Black and White

   Nothing is black and white.

Everything is a concept and in context.

I can love you and grieve who you should have been.

I can attend therapy over what you did and ache for what you could have done.

I can know who you were and be in hysterics over who you could have been.

I loved and hated you.

I avoided you at all costs and hoped someday my Pappy would come.

Please come.

But you didn't.

I watched you love others.

I know you were capable.

I know I was never enough to see that man.

You died with me settled on Easter after hot dogs, on ignored collect calls, on ketchup packets that should have not happened,

on do not engage in those activities, and what the fuck Is wrong with you.

You left and I’m broken, and grateful .

You cant hurt anyone anymore.

But am grieving because you also will never come home.

Nell Ditt

Pieces

 Over and over again in my world I have found myself in pieces.

Fault is irrelevant when the pieces cut me.

And I’m a master craftsman. I can take the ugliest and smallest of pieces and make them beautiful, or at least I could.