You Can Have It

Darling, though we’ve never met

You rolled the dice, you placed a bet

That you could win a lawsuit

Born of the heartbreaking news

That your baby died inside you

A horrific experience, true

But of your baby’s death, I had nothing to do

The coroner’s report reveals the truth

Your baby passed away at least a day before you ever walked my way

Darling, I didn’t even lay eyes upon you

I was being a team player, not a baby slayer

In going above and beyond to help another

I didn’t imagine I’d be sued by a mother

You said we dropped the ball

But we were never playing at all

If it is money you are looking for,

Honey you’re knocking on the wrong door

All those years I could have been earning

I spent in medical school learning

about medicine, not about law

Perhaps I wasn’t well trained after all

You want us to take the blame

for your unspeakable pain

Can you imagine what I have given up

just to help you, is it never enough?

For you, I went hungry, I went without sleep

Hard years away from my family, I didn’t see

I got stuck with needles, splashed with blood

Only for you to smear my name like it was mud

On the journey that led me to you,

I gave up love, I gave my life

I turned away from ease and took on strife

Of my own pregnancies, I sacrificed them all

My weeping uterus bled raw

Just to give you my best, I gave up the rest-

My youth, my babies and childbearing years, too many unnumbered tears

I stayed in an abusive relationship throughout medical school

Because the only way to escape my abuser would have been to drop out and forego my education

I stayed in hell for all the women held back from their full potential because of men

Though it was the hardest thing I ever did, and I still have nightmares about him

I don’t feel safe in my skin, but then again I never did

I wonder if I’d do it all again, just to reach out my hand, only to have you bite it

I fought hard to serve you, and serve you I did

Without a word of thanks from you, kid

Then again, we’ve never met

I’m named in your lawsuit, yet

What I’m trying to tell you

Is that my medical degree,

My heart, my mind

My hard work, and all my precious time-

You can have it

It was always yours anyway

Everything I do, dear patient, is for you

I give you my life- you can have my lawsuit too

In trying to hurt me, you only harm yourself

We are all connected in the One True Self

Limitlessness is bliss

Reach out and return the infinite kiss

Available to you at any time

You can have it if you understand this rhyme

Puzzle

I like to look at my map of the world and visualize the continents moving back together:
Puzzle pieces whose edges have been worn by time
I see how well they still fit, nook to cranny

Do you remember when you were all one? I ask the colorful curves of our earth
I wonder if the eastern shores of South America ache for the familiar embrace of the west African coast
Or if Cape Horn longs to kiss Antarctica on the lips just one more time

Traveling by map, I island-hop
I stop for a shag on the Shag Rocks and eat a sandwich on the South Sandwich Islands, both of which are east of Argentina and north of Antarctica.
Islands are the delicious crumbs of earth’s picnic

When I observe others struggling because they feel separate from All That Is,
I try to piece us back together
Though the salt water between us is blinding

I relax my gaze and see
That you fit perfectly with me
How we ever parted in the first place
Is the real puzzle

Weapons Trade

If cortisol was currency
I’d have already paid enough you see
Cut open my veins
Behold my riches
See that I’m debt-free

For any wrong you think I’ve committed
I’ve paid far more in physiology;
My over-achieving stress response that over-taxes me

My innermost body is ragged
From being invisibly ravaged
I try to hide from the naked eye
How much I am falling apart inside
Although I feel like I am unraveling in plain sight

I’ve never spoken my mind freely, not once in my whole life
Can you imagine what that does to a body?
Maybe you don’t have to imagine
Maybe you know

My teeth are ground down to the nubs
My tongue is a caged panther imprisoned by my jaw
Aching with atrophy and unrealized potential
I try to open my rusted jaw but it clamps down bitterly on my tongue
I have to remind myself to breathe at least once every few minutes
I consciously try to rearrange the puzzle pieces of my face
To form an expression other than my overly nervous smile

When I am not in service to others
I struggle to hold myself together
I am only comfortable in the giving role
Perhaps because everything was taken from me before I received it

Child abuse robs the child of their whole life
I am fighting to reclaim myself
My weapons are inner peace, hope and understanding