The Pattern.

I lay in his lap

Curl up like a 5 year old needing rocking

I lay my head in the slope where his neck and shoulder meet

He watches TV unaware I'm holding on

to absolutely everything inside me.

I criss cross my legs on top of each other at the ankle or calf or somewhere in the middle

Lean into him - letting gravity drape my 120lb body over his belly

like dead weight.

I am aware- I sit heavily on his heart

My breathing is paced rapidly

My insides are swirling

Yet I'm limp on the outside.

He can't feel me - He doesn't see

I hide it well inside me.

A few of my tears escape

wetting his green T-shirt

Three droplets spill unevenly.

I admire the space they take up

Are you ok he nudges me?

Mhmm hmm

I whisper half heartedly.

I lay there wanting to unhinge

Let it all out

The pattern

The thread

The commonalities of everything I am

and was and never will be

and still hope to become.

All the promises of me

weigh in me

weigh on him

They linger in the unknown

haphazardly.

I try to slow my breathing so he doesn't feel

My anxiety - My sadness - my pain

My seeing into my past and future and remembering all the things I don't want

to think about ever again...

But Must

in order to keep moving forward and upward and onward to heal and restore and rebuild and awaken to the images of the movie I play out on my nature walks with God

and my treadmill workouts

that somehow make me feel invincible

inspite of already meeting death

not once but twice.

He asks again-

Are you ok?

I stand up

wipe my right eye dry.

I'm fine - I say

Why are you crying then?

Just stuff I say - Nothing really.

I walk on to the kitchen

To the next thing calling me

And go about my day.

This is the pattern for me.

Everywhere.

A second to rest

take in enough oxygen to stand back up

and go again...and again.

Author Robyn Lynn Tanner