Shards

 

Shards

                    Sometimes into the night when I'm lying in bed

                    I hear a strange noise

                    A clanking ... swishing ... turning noise

                    I sit up, glance around my dark room

                    Oh ...

                    It's my computer printer randomly cleaning itself

                    Do that

                        Do that for yourself

                            Clank and swish and turn the cogs inside of you

                            Cleanse yourself

                    I wish it was that easy

                    I wish I could ransack and rummage and gather up into so many useless piles

                        The cracked and broken kaleidoscope shards that have become my life

                        And sweep them into some magic fountain that grants wishes

                        To cleanse me of my grief

                        Make me whole with so many beautiful colors again

                    I wish it was some kind of easy

                    My one cat has taken a place in bed next to me

                    She is there every night now where he used to be

                    She curls against my back, sometimes my chest

                    So warm and comforting

                    It doesn't cleanse me, but it is easy

                        and does feel like magic

                    For

                    She never did that before

                    Stayed by me through the night

                    Somehow she knows, senses, believes ... she can turn my wrong, right

                    Maybe

                    Maybe, too

                    She is helping me

                        Gather the broken shards that are my life

                        Night by night

                        Into a pile that is not useless at all

                        Maybe

                        She is helping put the pieces back together

                        One colorful piece at a time

                        Not to be thrown in a fountain to be wished on blindly

                            But to become whole 

                            Cleansed

                            Once again

                        As the me I used to be

            

                    I saw a squirrel on my patio tonight

                    She had torn open a chair cushion and was scooping out some of the fluff

                    I watched her as she scampered up the tree, the fluff in her mouth toward her nest

                    I thought, "The cushion is ruined now. Make sure to come back and get the rest."

                    Somehow, maybe some kind of sorcery ...

                        everything that happens lately feels like it is about my life

                        Cats, computer printers, thieving squirrels stealing from me

                            so many things

                            constantly remind me

                            swirl about me

                            bring me emotionally to my knees

                            make me think

                            "How much more can I take before I only bend and not break? 

                                Anymore? Take it all. Let's see. Let's see if I can rise from

                                the ashes he's made of my life."

                    I am bending now more than breaking

                    However

                    The parts that remain in shards

                        are the hardest to mend

                    The most shattered shards

                            are those of my broken heart ...