He relies on the strength
of her heart strings.
She winds them around him
to hold him together
when he might rattle apart
in the shaking, quaking times.
When she is weak and broken,
when she can not stretch her arms,
wide enough
to wrap heart strings around him,
he trembles and crumbles
apart.
When she is weak and broken,
he does not consider
that he could pretend
to be strong.
He could hold her heart strings,
and spin into her.
“A man like Matthew never frees himself of the shadows completely, but perhaps it is necessary to embrace the darkness in order to love him.”
~Deb Harkness in Shadow of Night
.
.
He thinks that he is so hard to love
he polishes his prickles
scours his scowls
brushes those glowering brows
as if this gruff front will keep his heart whole,
and impervious to the heat of a warm embrace.
But she wears fireproof gloves,
confronts him with frankness,
and forces him to face his fears.
She wraps his arms around her and
shows him his image in the mirror of her love.
Once upon a time
when someone was laid up
visitors would send cards
friends would deliver flowers
your buddies brought balloons
until the sick room was transformed
into a jolly place, papered in good wishes.
Now,
the wishes are all virtual
and the distraction is digital.
If only the pain was, too.
I was broken.
You sliced me,
knife blade deep,
peeling back skin,
excavating muscle,
exposing bone.
Then you
wound in screws,
stitched me together,
wrapped me in glass
and left a slash of
pulsing agony
to remember you by.
.
.
(Dedicated to Dr. Parfitt my orthopædic surgeon. 🙂 Sounds so much better as a metaphor; unfortunately he did all this literally!) 😉
This pain is a discordant symphony.
Percussion throbs a bass in the bone.
Piccolo dances of sensation up and down the leg.
Trumpet blasts explode out from the ankle.
Bassoon wails all along the incision site.
Kettle drum beats defiantly deep in the ankle bone. Dum. Dum. Dum.
Oboe whines a strident screech, vibrating muscle.
Cello squeezes, squeezes, squeezes low notes of agony.
Oh pain, go away; return my body to harmony.
Every hour on the hour
the baby wakes you up
and in a stupor you stagger
to diaper it, feed it, and cuddle it.
every hour on the hour
the incision wakes me up
and in a stupor I reach for drugs
to temper it, relieve it, and smother it.
It is like having a new baby
without the benefit of oxytocin
to make me love the torturer.
Our lives are Jenga towers:
intricate stacks of circumstance
that in a moment can
collapse around us.
.
Dogs snore
beside me as I lie
white plastered foot
elevated on pillows like a crown.
Royal pain.
In Outlander,
Jamie, the good husband, is always giving his wife, Claire, good advice.
He gives advice to keep her safe.
Stay here in this clearing, away from the soldiers.
Sage advice.
Stay here in the hold, away from the pirates.
Good counsel.
Claire, a modern woman with a mind of her own, makes her own decisions.
Her decisions often run counter to Jamie’s.
Invariably, Jamie has to bail her out of the trouble she’s landed in,
because she didn’t listen to him.
Today,
my good husband came home for lunch and said,
“Don’t go out there. It’s treacherous! I had to put down salt,
to melt the ice on the driveway!”
When he returned to work,
I saw the mail lady come.
I’m expecting a parcel.
There’s salt down.
What’s the worst that could happen?
I stepped on islands made by salt pellets
down our steep drive,
crossed the slippery road, and was within a meter of the mailbox
when I was splayed out on the edge of the road like a frog.
Ah! So that’s the worse that could happen.
Stay here in the house, away from the ice, he’d said
And after, my good husband didn’t even say,
“I told you so.”
Oh, if I could turn back time!
.
5 hours in Emergency because I have a spiral fracture in my ankle, and apparently orthopaedic surgeon will screw in a plate tomorrow, but at least I don’t have to pay anything for this adventure thanks to Canadian MediCare!
🙂
Outlander is written by Diana Gabaldon. It’s an amazing historical, time-travel, adventure, romance, amazing novel that you should read. My husband adores it, and tried to get everyone he knows to read it, as do I.
Shawn L. Bird 