Now Is Not A Poem

This isn’t my usual eating disorder focused post. However, I was thinking about the lineage of eating disorders in my family the other night. My mother almost certainly suffered from one. My grandmother was consumed with beauty in all forms (art, music, writing, physical beauty) but felt herself to be the opposite. I do this work for both of them, for my daughter, and for myself, so I can find the beauty where my grandmother couldn’t.

I will look out the window and

Marvel at the trees for you.

The trees you didn’t get to meet living in concrete and

Cacophony.

I will sit in silence, tapping the keys in rhythm,

A poem for you.

Not the rhyming kind you loved to write.

I’m sorry.

I am not sliding pen over page, looping letters.

Stitched together cursively, as you did, to create the song you’ll sing.

I am curled on my couch in the quiet of my life.

Writing my way into a bright yellow.

The color of my kitchen walls, so I can make you proud.

So I can make me proud.

I will sit and listen to the calls and caws of the crows.

I wish you could see the way the light falls on the weeping green leaves,

Yellow and soft.

And feel the warmth of the setting sun on your skin.

The sky is not elaborate tonight. It’s simple and sweet.

Not at all like you.

You were vibrant like the verdant trees outside my kitchen window. You were loud like the screeching crows.

I wish you could have felt peace like I feel tonight.

I know you would “Ha!” and close your eyes, do a little dance while humming a tune, if I told you: I thought this was a poem for you but it’s a gift of stillness for me.