Piper's lament- December 31st, 2024

 

At 5 PM, you spoke of tiredness,

though all you really wanted was a snuggle, a squeeze,

a familiar moment held close.

And on that unfamiliar twin bed, we stretched the evening thin,

casting shadow puppets in the glow of the evening,

our once-nightly ritual now fleeting,

elusive as dreams in a restless mind.

We talked, we laughed, we whispered,

your words brimming with the earnest weight

only a four-year-old heart can bear.

"I love you, Daddy," you spoke.

A simple truth, soft as cotton,

the sweetest declaration New Year's ever knew.

New Year's Eve 2024

 I wake, unrested, from fractured sleep.

New Year’s Eve.

A marker on the endless line.

Fifty odd years of Auld Lang Syne —

faces blurred, moments lost,

promises that dissolved

before they could take root.

Perhaps next year,

I’ll find the strength to begin again.

No resolutions this time though,

only a quiet, trembling hope

that the year ahead

will be kinder than the one before.

Morel support

 

Pop Sonnets

 

Pitch a tent.

In my early 20s, a girl named Elizabeth shattered my heart. I was too green to handle that kind of thing, so I did what felt wildly logical at the time: I pitched a tent in my parents’ backyard and stayed there for a week. Why? No clue. But oddly enough, it worked.

Flash forward 30 years, and recent events have dragged that dusty memory out of hiding. If I had the means and the wherewithal now, I can’t say I wouldn’t do it again. Does that make me immature for a guy knocking on AARP’s door? Maybe. But honestly, I think I’m just searching for something to patch me up the way that old, musty Coleman tent once did.

Writing helps. Work keeps me grounded. My kids are my heart, but they’ve got these piercing questions I haven’t even begun to answer, so their love — while a lifeline — isn’t exactly a salve.

What was it about that backyard tent that healed me? Was it the quiet, forcing me to tune into the storm in my own head? Maybe. Or was it just an escape, a soft cocoon that let me breathe between waves of pain? Could be.

Truth is, it wasn’t the tent — it was the avoidance. I zipped myself away from reality, hit pause on the heartache, and unzipped to a world that felt momentarily lighter. But that pattern of avoidance? Oh, I carried it with me. Every time life got heavy, I pitched a metaphorical tent and waited out the storm. Did that contribute to the end of my marriage? Let’s just say it didn’t do me any favors.

Now, I’ve got solitude — loads of it. Too much, honestly. Do I miss the chaotic rhythms of married life? Yeah, sometimes. But the emotional emptiness near the end? Not even a little.

This upcoming year feels like a turning point. Avoidance is so 2024. Pitching tents? Pure 1993. Maybe it’s time to upgrade to emotional glamping — find the balance between running and reckoning. Who knows, maybe a little yurt action is what I need. 

Saturday, December 28th, 2024

I once craved sleep,
but the soft stirrings of morning stole my longing.
No clock, just the warmth of your 6:00 AM wakeup snuggles —
a ritual unspoken, tender and true.

We swayed in the old chair,
its gentle creak a lullaby for us both,
and as I drifted off again, you mumbled for juice,
your small voice anchoring me to the day.

Now, only electronic alarms stir the silence,
cold and distant in their precision.

No whispers sneak into the morning,
no secret snuggles or battles for blankets,
no small, urgent cries for cereal to ground me.

Now, in the quiet of this old, lonely house,
the silence weighs heavier than the walls.

Without the distractions or stirrings,
it’s just me —
left to wake myself, 
if sleep even comes at all.

Violet Eloise (Christmas, 2024)

In the days leading up,

you counted the gifts,

insistent on balance, a fragile measure in your mind.

Then came the chaos — torn wrappings, bright voices —

and afterward, you smiled, content with the count,

though your sister had more.

The day wore on, its weight pressing as time stretched,

and though my departure loomed, you called it a success,

sweetened by candy, no doubt, and the bedtime that came far too late.

The next morning, you rose far too early,

dawn’s light bringing calm clarity to your seven-year-old mind.

You saw the day before with fresh eyes, the gifts you’d pined for now seeming small,

their fleeting glow dimmed by a deeper, growing understanding.

With new clarity, you declared that the gifts once treasured now paled in comparison to the bond of family —

made more precious by the fragile threads of our broken home.

That day, you spoke with quiet resentment, lamenting the money I had spent,

when what you truly longed for — what was really on your list —

was the father who no longer filled your days.

Piper Wren (Christmas morning 2024)

Wondrous and drowsy, your eyes glimmered,

Drawn to the bundle beneath a tree too grand, too gaudy,

Its branches spilling light onto the floor like a misplaced star.

This year, impatience hung in the air,

Justified, perhaps, by the strange rhythm of our new normal.

You awoke hours early,

Summoning all the patience a four-year-old heart could hold, as you waited.

Was it Daddy’s arrival that sparked your joy,

Or the anticipation of brightly wrapped promises waiting at your feet, soon to be revealed?

It didn’t matter — your enthusiasm was a sunrise in itself.

Each package you approached with reverence,

Scissors in hand, wielding your newfound skill.

No frantic ripping, no reckless haste —

Only the deliberate unveiling of wonder.

Afterward, surrounded by the crumpled wrappings that once hid baby dolls and baby sharks,

You played — your laughter and secret dialogues a soft murmur.

Daddy watched as you lost yourself in every new pretend.

A quiet smile tugged at his lips,

As he realized the new normal had, it seemed, affected him more than it had you.

 

November 22nd

No lone gunman.

No clandestine plot.

No patsy.

The communists, the mafia, the CIA — indifferent to our collapse.

No magic bullet.

No Carcano.

No Bay of Pigs.

The assassins were far more ordinary:

The slow bleed of finances,

The erosion of words,

The creeping chill of emotional distance.

Oh, and a guy named Brett.

Those were the murderers of our marriage.

That night, I lay alone in the hollow of an unfamiliar house — my ghetto Camelot — dreaming of old lovers and long-forgotten mistakes,

surrounded by the ghosts of lives that were never mine.