Dear Psycho Baby:
Your mommy doesn't want to suffer any more than you do tonight. Please stay asleep, and please let your new medication schedule work so that you don't spend the evening screaming. Otherwise I will be pushed beyond my temptation point to drug you just to keep my sanity.

Love,Mommy

guilt cuts my heart
stronger the pain, the more I need it
cannot let it go
steals the words from my voice
I fear one day it will silence me
an accident
and a lost soul seeking shelter
found me there
he didn't mean to hurt me
somehow it makes it easier to bear
makes me hurt more
the pain sweeter
wrapping myself in that quiet victimhood
so that I can go on
so that life can continue in that way
comfort in the routine
in quiet days and nights
I will go to my daughter
mind shys away to see her
quiet, innocent, helpless
once I was that small
once I was that helpless
could not have earned the guilt
means that I am still innocent
that I have punished myself all this time
for nothing
in my heart crying
what a waste
all those years I could have lived
all these nights wracked with guilt
tears shed for sorrow
I am lost
I am hiding, wounded
nursing my grief
in silence

going to bed early tonight
going to lay and stare at the ceiling in the dark
want to take a pill and let the hurting wash away
but that wouldn't be very responsible of me today... or ever. I'm tired. Guess that postpartum depression is really heavy tonight.

just... black
tonight
too tired to care
too tired to feel
blown off by all my friends
and i don't want to be here anymore
and i have to keep breathing, cause my baby needs me here

In my daughters eyes I can see castles in the air
Sapphire blue watches me
hidden thoughts
secret dreams
what does she see when she casts her gaze on me?
what will she remember when I'm old and full of care
when the absolute faith she has in me
is shaken as the roots of an old-growth tree
storm-tossed
will she know that I've done the best I knew how?
will she love me, beyond the ties that blood allows?
doesn't matter now
she's awake, she's hungry
she calls for Mama
and I obey

without my pain I find that I do not exist

the long hours of this gray life are colored with the promise that when I lay my head down at night I can recall the nightmares, that I can twist the knife I've left buried in my heart, and drown in pain. bring no words of comfort today. I need to hurt, to blame myself for what was done to me.

without my pain, I am no one

i'm done being a cow. I'm turning in my bells.

freedom is sweet.

it's just a bad dream
keep telling myself that and it'll be alright
none of this is real

the crying in my heart is not real
happened to someone else
somewhere else
it wasn't me and nothing will change that
just a bad dream

the aching in my skin won't go away
tearing in my spirit won't stop
the wounding of my soul breaks all the rules
another bad dream

i know i'm going to wake up any second now
i'm going to be safe in my bed with my love beside me
holding my shoulders back and calling my name
summon me back to the world of the living
because none of this is real
that's how i can stand things tonight
none of this is real
it's a bad dream and soon i'm gonna wake up
the sun will be shining
we'll go out for breakfast and hot tea
crisp air to liven the blue sky
and it'll be alright again

somebody wake me up and let me end this dream

gods. my Echocardiogram was fairly routine for me, I guess. My doctor left me a message yesterday that I had to get more bloodwork done this morning, so I did that. She called me at home just after lunch and told me that my platelets are still hinky. And they have convinced my white cells and another "marker" [I forget which one] to join them on the hinky side of life. Now, given my pre-cancer history, bone marrow issues are the last thing we'd expect to find in me. However, I'm being sent back into the clutches of oncology soon, to give it a going over.
On a brighter(?) note, I had another of my fake heart attacks during the echo. So, hopefully, they'll figure out what's going on with that.
y'know, I remember, barely, when my life did not resemble an episode of ER...

I've got to say; post-partum depression really sucks. Today I felt it crashing down around my ears twice. Both times I just wanted to curl up in a little ball and die. Not even my girl crying in the other room made any sort of impact on it. I just felt empty. So I'm back taking my prozac religiously, and I'm trying my best to block these feelings out, and I'm trying to deal.

and god, this is as hard as it was when I was just pre-partum depressed and trying not to cut myself again.

these days I don't know what's going on. Just have to go one step at a time, one feeding, one diaper, and try not to cry. Because I'm just feeling a complete lack of joy in everything today. There's very little interest in anything, and it's awfully hard to motivate myself to do anything extra.

more poetry... I'm working on my next poetry volume. Should be done with it in about a month, then I'll put it out on lulu.com with the others. unlike the last one, the new book will have a lot of stuff (the majority) never-before-published! well, posted, at anyrate... the first one was mostly posted one at a time every few days/weeks on my various newsgroups. But the new one will be virgin territory. I'm excited about it. And maybe, just maybe, I'll sell a few copies of it. And make a few bucks.

After all, diapers ain't free!

no words to speak of the darkness
of the fear that i've got to walk this road alone
keep telling myself that i'm not alone
that others have walked this way before
that they've seen the darkness and lost their light
and kept going
and finally, gone on to live again and love again and laugh
yet i fear and there is nothing tonight that can ease this fear
the hunger in my arms returns
yearns to hold my child close
the dark cannot steal her away from me
i refuse to let her go
this fear may creep up my throat and steal my words
it may even cloud my sight
it will not take my child from me
yet every time her breath catches in her lungs
i shake
every time i see her legs begin to mottle i fear
when she sighs after the struggle to draw breath and clear the pathways of her frail lungs
the fear rises in me and i want to hold her tighter in my arms

tonight i read of a woman delivered this morning. her child did not live to see the nooning of the day, or the bright sun in the sky, or the clouded dusk. i grieve her loss and it makes me want to run to my own child, sleeping peacefully in bed, and snatch her up. it makes me want to sit by her side all this night and count each breath and weep.

but for the luck that brought me to my own doctor on april 28th, it would have been me in that hospital bed tonight. grieving. dying.

Whooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Go, Munchkin, go Munchkin. Rah Rah Rah. Go Munchkin...
ahem.Ignore the proud and vindicated Mama in the corner. But I'm just so fricking PROUD of my baby right now. She found the Holy Boob, and latched herself on, and she Got Milk.
With the widest, most unsure, horrified eyes I've ever seen in an infant. She didn't know what was going on, or why, or what to do about it other than suck and swallow. Now she's finishing her feeding in her grammy's lap, being told what a good girl she is.
This is so cool. Lactivists can go kiss my pasty white ass. I am *not* a failure at moo-cow-dom. I am *not* a sad excuse for a mama. And even should we never do this again, I'll always have this moment to hold away in my heart.