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.