Hunger
Hunger
Hunger
Tag: love
Where Is…
Where is…
Love Like Water
JM, 1986
Divorce
Jeanne Marie, 1978
Do I love you?
The Most Beautiful Girl
I saved a Valentine’s Day rose from my son for twenty-odd years.
Then, when it fell apart, I still saved the petals with the card which read, “To the most beautiful girl I know, my mom.”
He was sixteen that day when he brought me a rose at work, handsome and a foot taller than me.
And very smart, because while my tears were still messing with my make-up, he hit me up for a loan to buy his girlfriend a dozen roses and I gave it to him with a smile and a hug…
I kinda knew I had been played, but his technique was awesome. He played it so smooth, almost a man.
He is forty now and I know I’m not the most beautiful girl in his world…two other awesome ladies were destined to share that spot and I love them.
Still, every time I come across the faded card, the sweet words and the dried-out petals…I smile.
I close my eyes and for just a moment, I soak in the memory of his surprise visit, back to the moment when to my son, I was the most beautiful girl he knew…
The Wedding Heels
I’m trying to de-clutter my life and unravel my mind.
Yesterday, I threw my thirty-five-year-old, size five wedding heels in the trash. I tried on a lot of shoes before I found the perfect heels. They were important. My future mother-in-law bought them for me. She wasn’t impressed by her son marrying a woman with three kids, so they were a peace-offering.
The heels have stuck around. They made the cut every time I packed. They have been with us to fifteen houses and a dozen apartments.
I had hoped to wear them again, maybe on an anniversary, but that’s not going to happen.
My feet are no longer small and petite, and my husband and I have separated.
I looked at the shoes laying there in the trash, taunting me, reminding me of my wedding day, and I pushed them in deeper. I instantly panicked, but I took deep breaths and I walked away.
Later, I carried the bag outside to the trash can.
Today, I was out front tearing open the trash bags. Coffee grounds, dog’s pee papers, egg shells and dirty paper plates, I found.
No shoes.
I gave up easy, compared to my norm.
I’m not a quitter. I held on to those heels for thirty-five years.
I stopped because I knew it was hopeless.
I could save the heels. But I couldn’t save us.
I’m strong and I’m weak. I’m resisting the urge to go back out there now.
I just want the trash truck to come and take the heels away before I give in to my compulsion to bring them back into the house.
If I can leave the heels in the trash, maybe I’ll make it through this after all.
P.S. The trash men came and the shoes have gone to their final resting place.
Thank You
Have I ever thanked you for all the nights
you sat on your cold bathroom floor
talking me into staying alive,
for praying me sober when I was lost in the swamp,
for holding me close when my heart was broken,
for standing by my side when everyone else
walked away because I was wrong?
Have I ever thanked you for never judging me,
for never giving up on me,
for seeing my beauty
when all I could see was my ugly,
for being my sister, my best friend,
my go-to person for every pain and every joy?
Have I ever thanked you for introducing me to Jesus,
for your powerful prayers
when my daughter was dead in the water,
for your face that she saw as she came up, alive?
God places angels in our lives, and you are mine.
I am me because you loved me through.
For embracing me, for accepting the mission
with all of your heart, my sister, I thank you.
Another Christmas for Grace
My dad was an alcoholic and Christmas was his favorite time of the year to tear up the house, a futile attempt to destroy my mother’s Christmas spirit.
He never succeeded with her, but he made me dread Christmas.
When I was a young mother, I didn’t really celebrate Christmas, not until the kids were toddlers and even then, I just went through the motions for them.
When I was twenty-seven, I got remarried to a man who made a big deal of Christmas.
Until our first Christmas together, I had never put up more than a 2′ ceramic tree, and only because my mom had special ordered it for me.
Our first year together, we put up a 6′ tree with all the trimmings and we surrounded it with presents.
The kids were so excited on Christmas morning and it was contagious.
From that point on, I grew to love Christmas and all that it meant to the kids.
My mom was so proud of me for overcoming my childhood Christmas phobias and soon, I had enough homemade decorations from my mother to cover an entire tree.
I used to love to send her pictures of the tree decorated with her ornaments.
I put up big trees until my youngest moved out, and then I still put up trees, just not as large.
As my kids had kids of their own, I split Mom’s decorations between them and I bought new decorations for me.
Every year, I would do a different theme, bouncing between girly and guy.
All miniature dolls and fairies one year and all Harley-Davidson decorations another year. Pink trees, white trees, purple trees, gold and green. Even a Palm tree one year.
Then, my mom, Grace, died in 2009.
I had a hard time again, but my sister, Cherie, talked me into putting up a tree just for my mom and she sent me butterflies and fairies to decorate it.
That was my first Christmas for Grace.
The next year, it. became a tradition, one tree for Mom, one for me.
Three years ago, my husband and I split up and although I put up a small tree for Mom, I didn’t really celebrate Christmas.
We got back together after seven months and we had two more nice Christmases together, but we separated again this fall, and now here I am, my second Christmas without him in thirty-eight years.
I really didn’t know how I was going to get through it.
I decided the first thing I needed to do was to buy a Christmas tree in a color I had never had before.
I resisted the urge to buy blue for a Blue Christmas, and before I could change my mind, I ordered a turquoise colored Christmas tree. That was in October.
It sat in the box for about a month, while I thought about it.
What would I put on it?
That’s when my sweet friend, Michelle Marie, came to the rescue. She called and offered me enough decorations to do my whole tree. When she brought them to me on Thanksgiving weekend, I was thrilled. They were so beautiful and unlike anything I had ever used before.
My kids came with their kids for Thanksgiving weekend and I asked the three youngest ones to decorate the tree.
Four-year old Mile Mae, got on her daddy’s shoulders to put the star on, and while the entire tree leans, including the star, it’s perfectly imperfect. It’s rather Grinch like, and that was my mom’s favorite movie.
After they were all gone, I brought out some of my little fairies, my mom’s butterflies and a few special ornaments. I added them to the tree. The tree lights are pink and at night, it changes the tree’s color and the walls around it glow.
So, although it is a sad Christmas for me in many ways, I have kept my Christmas spirit going, partly in honor of my mother who refused to let an insane alcoholic destroy her Christmas spirit and partly in honor of myself, because I deserve a happy and blessed Christmas, and yes, I am blessed.
I have fifteen grandkids and five great-grandchildren, a beautiful, warm home, food and everything I need.
I firmly believe Jesus is the reason for the season, but when your grandkids are small, it’s also about glitz and glitter and shiny presents and stockings filled to the brim, hugs and love, Oreo’s and milk, all waiting for them at Grammy’s house.
So this tree is for them, and for my mom, the woman who taught me that your Christmas will become whatever you choose to make it, and for my sister, who wouldn’t let me quit Christmas after my mom died.
Special thanks to Michelle Marie for the perfectly timed decorations and thank you Jesus, for another Christmas and another chance to make memories with my family and friends.
To Do More…
I feel the strands stretch
as I leave you at the airport
tearing, ripping, bleeding
straining to be released
struggling to break free
before I bleed out.
Driving away in tears
begging God for healing
aching to be, to do more
than simply survive.
It’s December
It’s December.
We start out searching for the perfect presents for our kids and we spend our lives trying to find them something they will love, so that we can hand it to them and watch their little faces light up.
Like the Cabbage Patch doll that was impossible to get, but we got one and the Transformer that was not to be found, but we found one.
Presents that just for a minute, light up their eyes.
It’s December and there is not much time left to find the perfect presents.
I have so many presents, but they are spread all over my house and all tangled up in my mind, and they are not wrapped pretty.
I don’t know if I’ll have time to put on the ribbons and the bows before I leave.
I want to leave them self-confidence and emotional security.
I want them to know that they were loved unconditionally by their mama.
I want them to be strong, without me.
I want them to keep all the good that I have given them in their hearts.
I want them to know that I was a person too…not just their mother.
I want them to forgive me…I know I made mistakes and I take responsibility for those mistakes.
I want them to forgive their own mistakes and not regret them every night, as I have done.
I want to leave them my boxes and boxes of writing, all neatly edited and put together, but I don’t think that will ever happen because I write too much.
December has come so quickly.
I don’t know where the other 11 months went. One day I was 17 and now I’m 65.
One day, I had no wrinkles and suddenly they have appeared all over my face and neck, and I as look in the mirror, I say, “Wow, you are old, young lady. You may be young on the inside, but your body shows the time.”
My presents are not wrapped, but I will wrap what I can before I go, and I pray that it is enough to light up their faces when they remember me.
It’s December.
Love Can Be Twisted
Love can be twisted, love can be cruel.
Love can tear you to pieces and turn you into a fool.
Love can grow wings and fly you to the moon
then it can take you to hell and whoops!
Here you go! A flight to the stars,
crashing back down, way too soon!
Love will take you everywhere
oh that silly love, it will take you so far!
Love will take you to places
where you don’t even remember who you are!
What drew you together, you might never know
were you just like his mother
or was it your smile that once
sparkled like sun, your glitter and bows?
You grabbed each other’s hands
and you said Yes! Yes! I do and I do!
Love codependent was playing a game
turning your smarts inside out, flipping
your brain to mush, all sticky, icky and goo.
Up, up and up, oh so high you did go!
Then in snuck the Oh no’s! How could you’s?
The you coulda’s, The I woulda’s, The I don’t know if I shoulda’s.
The same ‘ol I’m sorry’s, I’m not’s, I love you’s and I dont’s!
When you try to end it, all you can see is the good’s.
You cry too much and you scream, I won’t give up…
Oh NO, I wont! Wait! Maybe I should?
I bet I don’t!
I bet I don’t!
Love comes down, right down to the floor
to memories of passion
that don’t live here anymore.
Alive only in your silly, girly head
and all of a sudden you’re not speaking
even though you still snuggle in bed.
Too many years you each play the games,
you play and you play till you’re half insane.
It comes to this is your’s and this is mine time
don’t worry baby, my mama don’t hate you,
I will always love you’s and you will be fine’s.
Dr Seuss taught me about Green Eggs and Ham,
he never once, no, not ever, did he warn me
I’d have to let go of my one love’s hand.
Love can be twisted, love can be cruel
Love can tear you to pieces and turn you into a fool.
Letting Go
Not even a whisper of hope
Not even a tiny glimmer
Not even a maybe
Yet somehow,
Letting go hurts less than holding on…
Such a perfect couple…
Such a perfect couple, people always say…
They don’t know that for so many years we have said the same sentences.
They don’t know that for so many years we have said the same sentences.
“Don’t talk to me that way.”
“I talk to you that way because you made me so mad.”
“Well, that doesn’t give you the right to talk to me that way.”
“Yeah, I know.”
I believe we have said just that paragraph over five thousand times.
Exactly like that, except now and then a f’n works its way through.
Exactly like that, except now and then a f’n works its way through.
So, now it’s decision time.
Because I keep repeating the same sentences too.
How do I change the script?
Because I keep repeating the same sentences too.
How do I change the script?
Our responses are so automatic.
Can you actually change within a destructive relationship or do you have to leave it?
I learned a long time ago, that you alone are responsible for what you accept from other people. I have accepted verbal abuse.
I am also responsible for how I respond to other people. I’ve become angry enough to start screaming right back at you. I don’t want to be that woman.
I don’t know how to be near you without being angry anymore and that scares me.
Can I change? Can you change?
I guess we would have if we could have.
Such a perfect couple people always say…
I guess we would have if we could have.
Such a perfect couple people always say…
That shoulder is quicksand…
That shoulder is quicksand…
Our Love Is Only
Our love is only valuable when we’re apart.
It becomes so intensely sad, wild and mystical that
I can almost forget where we were when you left.
When we’re together it’s no, I didn’t, yes, you did.
Crying and fighting and tears and yelling.
Boundaries that should never have been crossed.
Now it’s two-thirty a.m.
and sleeping is what I should be doing
but your nice words from tonight
are swirling in my head, lingering
as I ache for your warmth in my bed.
Talking to you is so hard and so painful
as your voice awakens my anger
that we are doing this once more
and I have to live without you
when that wasn’t what I wanted.
Your current kindness stirs my grief
into a big old mess of confusion and regret.
The train is blowing through town
the whistle long, drawn out and melancholy
just like when you were here.
Now it’s three-thirty and sleep is just a thought.
I want what we didn’t have
I want what I thought we had
even as there’s no way back
to what I thought we had
for the first few years because
it was something that didn’t exist.
it was something that didn’t exist.
It’s five a.m. and as soon
as I shut my eyes the tears fall.
That’s why I don’t shut them.
Sitting alone in the house
that you pay for, the house
that is everything that I didn’t want,
but it didn’t matter what I wanted.
Watching the sun come up
behind the trees
as the tears go down.
as the tears go down.
Our love is only valuable when we’re apart.
I Cry Because
I cry, not because you’re gone, no
it’s that you left me so many years ago.
I’ve realized it was a lie, I’ve been sleeping with
and snuggling against the enemy’s back
dancing with demons in my bed
holding my breath to give you air
for thirty years too long.
I cry because
I refuse to love you anymore and
love’s removal leaves a gaping wound.
You pulled me close, then
you pushed me away so hard
you bruised my tender soul.
Over and over and said it was my fault
while I bloodied myself in battles
you had already won.
I cry because your love
was just an illusion, a reward
that I could never earn.
I cry because
I lost a love I never had at all.
You Said
You said that you’re proud of me
you said that I am strong
you said that I am beautiful
you said that I am kind
you said that you were wrong.
It would have been awesome
if you had said those words to me
before it was too late.
What’s Left
If we could have
we would have
but we couldn’t
and this is what’s left…
Empty arms, your clothes
folded on the bureau
two extra pillows
that I tuck around me
so I can fall asleep
left over love
your favorite glass
wedding photos
your old tee-shirt
guitars in the cellar
pictures of us kissing
between each fight and
two lonely Chihuahuas
confused, waiting
to hear your truck
pull in the drive.
Bleeding Heart
Down to my last bleeding heart…
As I Go
I must leave pieces of myself behind
as I go and that used to frustrate me.
I wanted to gather up all the pieces
and take them with me
wherever I was going.
But I can’t gather up all the pieces
I already laid down…
I know because I have tried.
The flowers I planted
roses and lilacs and
daisies and sunflowers,
gathered with you by my side.
They must stay.
Even you cannot come with me this time.
I am giving you back your heart.
The raspberry bushes I have grown
the bed we sleep in…
I have to leave it all behind.
There is no other way.
As I prepare to leave the life
that I’ve poured my worth into
I realize I will be leaving
pieces of my spirit
as I move on to another place
another garden, another season.
I think I like the idea of leaving behind
pieces of my spirit because maybe, just maybe,
those little pieces of me were blessed
and they will comfort you.
Maybe one of my sunflowers will burst
from the earth I turned and help
your hurting heart smile again.
And maybe, just maybe, we’re supposed to
leave precious pieces of ourselves behind
to nurture others as we move on.
It is not easy but I must,
I must leave pieces of myself
behind as I go.
2018 Jeanne Marie
The Table & Chairs
My old table and chairs have been freshly painted and they’re adorable, but that’s not all there is to it.
They have traveled a long, rough road to land pretty on my front porch.
I’ll start with when I first remember seeing them in my mom’s living room. They were brand-new, white.
I was thirty-something with three young kids and my sister, seven years younger, had four young kids.
My mom had a small basement apartment underneath my aunt’s house, but she had one closet full of blankets and pillows that we would use when we slept over. We would just spread them all over the tiny living room and it would be wall-to-wall kids.
Mom never cared how small her place was, she always had room for all of us.
We would cook huge Sunday dinners in her little kitchen, and then we would all stand there together doing the dishes.
In the evening, after the kids would settle down, my sister would put a table-cloth on the little table and a candle. She would say we were in a French bistro.
Then she would ask me to read some of my poems, which I always just happened to have with me.
For an hour so, we would all be transported to a little café in France and I was the entertainer.
My mom was my first reader and fan, but they were all my very first audience and their love for my writing carried me on waves of encouragement.
I didn’t find out until many years later that my sister also wrote poetry, and I was stunned when I read it because it was so much better than mine. She always gave me the spotlight.
My mom passed away in 2009, and I don’t know when my older sister acquired the table, but she graciously gave it to me when I asked her for it last spring. She also gave me the round cushions.
The little set traveled eighteen hundred miles with me to my new home.
My husband spent days painting it and repairing the metal binding around the table. Butterflies surrounded him as he worked, even landing on his hands.
I scrubbed it down before it was painted and butterflies were landing all over it then too.
My mom is a butterfly, so I believe the restoration made her happy.
Now that it’s finished, just looking at it makes me smile, overcome by the flood of memories it invokes.
I had my coffee at it this morning and as butterflies flitted by, I could feel my family, young and unscathed by the heartaches yet to come, unburned by the tragedies and the pain we would all go on to experience.
Those were innocent days. I just didn’t know. I am thrilled to have the table to remind me.
It’s The Memories
We start out with nothing and we pick up a lot of things along the way. Some of the things are important and some of them are not.
Some of those things bring us joy and some of them bring us down. Some of them actually hinder us and so many hurt us.
Today, I sit here wondering, where are the letters I wrote to you when you were a baby?
In our crazy lives, we have moved so many times and lost so many material things, and I wonder, are baby letters material things or are they heart things?
I always tell you that you are my sunshine and the first time I told you that you were two years old.
I sat down that night and I wrote you a letter so that you would always know, no matter where you went, if we were together or apart, that you were a ray of sunshine in my life.
I sat down that night and I wrote you a letter so that you would always know, no matter where you went, if we were together or apart, that you were a ray of sunshine in my life.
Since then, we’ve put a lot of miles on our boxes and our possessions.
We have traveled to different states, to different apartments and lived in dozens of houses.
A lot of memory boxes have been lost along the way.
I spent a moment regretting those losses, wishing I still had your baby book and your brother’s Hot Wheels and Lego’s and your hippie christening dress, but then I remember that most importantly, I still have you and your brother, and all the moments I spent with your sister.
I own my memories and I don’t need to carry around all the boxes.
Even knowing that, I still have way too many boxes because every time I lose a memory box, I hold on tighter to stuff.
I think today I need to clean out some of the boxes and lighten my load because in the end we come with nothing and we leave with nothing.
It’s all the people we love in between our beginnings and our endings that matter and the things we carry around are not important.
The best things can’t be packed up in a box…the memories, the love and the moments.
The boxes are just stuff that can be lost.
The boxes are just stuff that can be lost.
We own our precious memories, the moments and the love already received, because those things are safe, packed in our hearts and in our minds.
Spirit Whispers 1
Spirit Whispers
You are loved, you are so loved, you are loved beyond measure.
Love is all around you. Just shut your eyes for a moment and open your heart to receive.
It is in the air you breathe, the wind that cools your skin, the rain that falls on your face, the moon shining in your bedroom window as you sleep, the stars watching over you, the earth beneath your feet, the flowers I created just to see you smile, the ocean, the lakes and the life giving waters that flow at the touch of a faucet.
Man routed the water, but I created it for you because I love you.
You are loved by the birds singing good morning to you, you are loved by the butterfly that flies by your shoulder.
I created it all just to remind you how much you are loved.
You are precious, you are precious to me child and you are loved with every breath you take.
I remind you…you are loved…you are loved.
The Princess
The Princess was sitting in her castle and she swore no man would she let woo.
She turned them all away as she said, no, not you, not you, not you, to myself I will be true.
She danced with her butterflies, she twirled in her flower gardens like when she was two.
She whispered to her flowers, confessing, I love you and you and you.
So happy was this woman that she vowed never to wed and then a Knight in dazzling armor appeared at the castle gates, the sun shining on his head.
She was blinded by his beauty, aura like spun gold and this one Knight she invited to her bed, visions of together growing old.
Prince Charming was his name and wow, that man tickled her fancy with his soft kiss and even if he just walked by, she would stumble and a step she would miss.
Well, we all know about no such thing as happy endings and soon the Princess gave up her other loves, like her writing.
She was busy twisting and turning and bending to keep the Prince happy, looking in her mirror-mirror and often sitting there silently for hours.
The Prince started kissing her less and less often and his voice for her…he no longer softened.
Many nights she cried herself to sleep, under so many full moons…she would weep and weep and weep.
Many moons later, she came to her senses, had the guards toss the Prince out and around her old gardens she built stronger fences.
This is a true story and you know it’s true, because I was the Princess and you, you were the Knight I gave my heart too.
Silly Princess, Stupid Boy, hard lessons, me and you.
Women Who Think Too Much by Jeanne Marie 
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