hindsight

Hindsight, you speak

as clearly as you see.

It was all too much,

these words hurled at me. 

I have collected each kindling line

and here, set them aflame. 

There is music in the crackling, the burning and

 lifting away

I hum along, louder now:

 "... it is well..."

 LAST YEAR WITH LARRY

(by Larry, with his phone) 

You are a psycho. Everyone knows it
You are just someone I use to know
You are not a VERY stable person.

Your family is a cult. You will lie and cheat to get your way. 

You attack anyone that disagrees with you

You are on the bi-polar kick today I see. You really need some help

I’m not saying that to be mean. You really need to get checked out

I just simply no longer loved you
Less of you is more for me
You are just crazy
Get in the real world

Nope. I’m not going down your crazy rabbit hole.

You were the problem in this marriage. I now believe that 1000%.

You are not mentally stable and have major issues. 

I pray for our kids you get help.

I’m sorry I hurt you. I hope you forgive me one day. I’ve never wanted to hurt you

You’re a sick individual.

If you only knew what some people close around you thought about your actions
You failed our kids so much
We both know who you are
Getting a police report
You’ve made all of this so much harder than needed

Your son doesn’t even want you to know where he’s going. Now that’s sad

I don’t care why you left. I’m just thankful you did. 

You can be someone else’s bat shit crazy girl. I’m good

Your are not a good person and thankfully others have started to see this.
You failed me and our kids.

I divorced you because your bat shit crazy, I didn’t love you anymore

I’m not mad at you. I don’t hate you. I still pray for you daily.

I wish you would just listen, 

but you fancy yourself on thinking your the smartest person in the room.

You’ll answer to someone one day

Your a hateful person and someone I no longer have room for in my life.

It will be a glorious day when we no longer have much interaction.

Then you add your nasty family on top of that. 

To be honest you can thank your family for 75% of divorce

No I know my neglect played apart I see that now

Your a nasty human
Your petty

I hope one day in your life you will listen.

 It cost you so much by just not listening to people

I need you out of my life because you are a negative person and then manipulator and just a badperson

I love you and want to work on US so bad

You are your daddy’s girl.

Daddy finally gave baby girl the wrong advice
You are a liar
You are the biggest fraud
Your really starting to lose it
You need mental help

lunatic

I regret the mean comments I definitely didn’t mean them 

And wish I could take them back

You are sick. You need help
You will never understand
dumb ass
They don’t like you
I don’t want to see you

I don’t recognize who you have become. You are not the person I married

To be honest what am I losing? A manipulator, liar , a cheater

You are walking out on this family. 

Hiding behind the BS child abuse narrative.

I hated our marriage. It was an disaster at best.

 I'm glad you finally listened and left

I neglected you. I am sorry. Period Now you have to deal with that. It’s your choice

You are the liar

You absolutely are a bad person. 

You are a liar

You are a liar and always have been
You are a adult. Act like one

Same ole K. You can’t be trusted

11:33 on Friday and you are out and a bout
You have self worth issues

You have self beauty issues

I really apologize for my words. I am being honest
If I could take them back I would.
Unreal you are all over the place

Integrity is really not your strong point

My only request is you come HOME. I will meet all your request
You are safe
We need to attend church regularly
We need family time

The locks have been changed.

Your son plans to testify against you

You are such a fraud

Y’all are a cult and I plan to expose it

I will never neglect your love again
I will never use a negative word to describe my best friend again
I will apologize to our kids about tearing you down

And explain how that was wrong

For the most untrustworthy person in my life. You sure do love that word
You can’t even do math
Hope ur new man will love you from jail.
You just wait.

I was never your love

I can honestly say, you never loved me like I loved you

Those words were anger word that are not meant
Your value dropped long ago in my eyes.

I love you but

I absolutely hate everything about you. 

You are just a bat shit crazy piece of poop.

 I can't wait to be back in court

You are a complete psycho. You really need help

Your kids absolutely hate you. I wish it wasn't that way. 

I really hope for all y'all sake it doesn't last forever.

Get ready to spend some serious cash. 

I will sell everything I have to stop you

You're crazy
I don't love you

Hate to see the non code house have to be torn down. Your choice
Stop being an ass. Get over yourself. 

It will take me time to understand you do want this.
You could have stopped it

She knows more about me than you ever will know.

You know me better than anyone

You are and always have been a lair.

I can’t believe I stayed 20yrs with you . What a waste of my life.
If you only knew what most people thought about you

Can’t believe you felt unloved.

You know I really don’t want the kids to see you arrested 

by the police no matter what you say to them they’re going to arrest you. 

Whether you’re right or wrong they are going to process you
Then you’re going to sit in there for a minimum of 

probably 24 hours before you can get bailed out

I can honestly say for 20 years, through it all I LOVED you, but I question that now

I hope you get married, pregnant or something so you will leave me the hell a lone

I love you k and I will with all my soul until that last paper is signed
Just so you hear it from me first. I'm getting married again Oct 12th
She knows about you.
She’s an amazing girl and is beyond amazing to our kids. 

She is the most drama free girl I’ve ever met
I’m in love with her. We plan to get married in March of next year

I’m in MAJOR love with her. She is my new world.

Your kids absolutely love her and she is really nice to them

Plus I've never talked to anyone 

while we were married or even attempted too

Your son hates you

So nice to not be married to a kid any more.
The real world is so much better these days

It’s on now. I’m going after everything and everyone.

It’s officially a WAR now.

Wait the kids will be testify next go around

During this process, what I knew and thought about you 

has been confirmed by me and others

I care NOTHING about you and I mean NOTHING

I’m definitely ok in the love department

I hope you get help so the kids can LOVE you too

you better be prepared

I pray you will find someone that will love you

I love GOD and have him in the right place in my life

If this is what it takes for me to feel true love or happy. 

Than GOD give it to me. 

It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; 

for I am not better than my fathers.

You’ve made discarding 20 years very easy.

I really feel sorry for you.

get a fucking life

sorry ass mom

If you could hit a re-boot button or re-do button, would you?

~~~

Dear Larry, 

       No. 

Sincerely,

         ~k 

It's been a year...

It's been a year since his gifts returned but I could not... gifts for being their father, returned in protest because I was their mother. 

::Laswell ~ It's been a year::

Table Tales: Another Thankful Family Table

 

Wasn't there always warm welcome, 

plenty to go around? 

With heads bowed in gratitude, 

Here love once was found. 

Table Tales: The Thankful Family Table

There's a table, You've prepared for me in the presence, of my enemies...

2011

Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody. Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. “I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.” ~ Rom12

As I walk through this season of mourning, I stop along the way sometimes, wondering if these promise are still true for me, despite my own humanity. I believe that my heart was in the right place, but I am told, too, that hearts are wicked and deceptive above all else. 

I hope that I have been obedient. I hope that the desire for peace and love is not a seed wasted. Motives are harder to be sure of when denied a share of the harvest. 

Still, I will trust. It's all I can do. 

little kite

East coast girl with your sun tanned skin

Salt in your hair, kissed by the wind

You're wild and free to live and let be

Strings let go you'll soar and sink low

Follow the river away from the sea 

Float the Savannah, back home to me.

I once wiped the tears of a young girl's eyes 

Real life is tested by whether we cry.

Feel and allow it, for though there is pain 

A life without contrast is one built in vain.

Salt and fresh water, shadow and light 

Opposing angles build houses upright

I sit in my own house, thinking of you, 

little kite tattered, lost in the blue

I bottle my question and fling it to sea: 

Were sandcastles and kite flying only for me?

The First Meeting of the Freewheeling Widows' Society

Friday night and we are out to eat, two widows proper and me, widowed by the death of a girlish dream.



Our waitress leads us to a four top, one empty chair for the phantoms we bring.



We three share genes and a bloodline, but have different ideas about dressing a biscuit.



My aunt asks for apple butter, my cousin requests honey from a bear and I opt for maple's syrup.



The phantoms are silent. No one asks what they would have liked.



My aunt, alone the longest and of a quiet nature,  is content to share our company.



My cousin, twice widowed yet too young to retire, is - unbeknownst to our waitress - a former five star general in the order of Cracker Barrels.



I feel the need to create content, to lift countenances; we are not begged by little voices to please, pretty please, play checkers.



The phantoms clear their throats and I push the peg game meant for one in front of their empty chair.



"I wonder if they have blueberry muffins tonight?" my cousin asks aloud

"Oooh, mmm!" my aunt replies.



They've been here before, done this a time or two.

But now we are three. And tonight, we are all free.



Freewheelers... like three, but free.



When our Rising Star appears beside the table, our general in disguise requests three blueberry muffins, sliced and thrown onto the grill.

Most people don't know you can do that.



I object. I've already had a syrupy biscuit and a corn muffin is promised with my meal.

Too much bread, daily.



"Trust us, you want one." they agree



We linger, not over coffee, for our cadet is struggling to learn the juggle.



Sometimes, as we chat,  a phantom gets a nod, for our lives and theirs used to be one.



We box up the abundance, including three blueberry muffins, sliced and grilled through the middle.

"That will be just the thing with your coffee in the morning" the experienced widows tell me.



A curl of smoke rises from my cousin's porch rocker to the Gospel music playing overhead.

My aunt rocks on steady, watching the clouds change color, as the sun sets behind the Lowes across the street.

They have chosen rockers on either side of an old church pew.



"Are you guys saying I need to go to church?"

I sit on the pew with my leftovers and a bag of general store goods.



"If the shoe fits!" laughs the rocker to my left.

And it is accidentally, instantly funny, for I've invited them to church with me countless times.

But on Sundays,  I sit alone.



We each take home a miniature toy that represents childhood joy,

reminders that we've come far and do not walk alone.



The phantoms let us open our own car door, withholding their good night kisses.

We, busy making plans for next time, gladly fail to notice.



~*~



I scrawl this out over rapidly cooling coffee, the crumbs of a grilled blueberry muffin sinking into silt at the bottom of my mug.



They were right, it was delicious, and just the thing to start a Saturday morning in a house devoid of children. They have more than muffins to teach me, I know.



I'm looking forward to our next Freewheeling Adventure, I hear Fuddruckers might be involved.



Meanwhile, I'm happy and content.

Alone, but not lonely.

In my quiet house, 'where no one now is sleeping...'

Dear Three: To The Woman Dating My Husband

Dear Three,



Hi, I'm Deuce. We haven't met yet, but we will.

I've known about you long before auditions began.

And I've always told him I aim to be your friend.

There are children involved, after all.



You are no doubt lovely, and gentle and kind.

He has top-shelf taste though his budget is sometimes inflated.

He says he is going to wife you soon; very, very soon he tells me.

Perhaps sometime in early October,

when my birthday rolls around.



I think he intends that to stun and sting.

But I am already quite numb from the earlier blows.



Though we are not exactly divorced yet, I tried that whole kinstugi thing.

The gold we found in Rome's mountains could not heal or seal us, and all the King's horses and Prince Simon's men, couldn't put us back together again.

It takes both sides holding their broken parts, together.



While I must note the ease with which two decades have been discarded, it is only a reminder for myself.

You must not read into my tone a longing or desire to change this tide.

To call him back to my side.



We don't crash onto such shores without first losing a battle with the raging sea.

This letter is simply a note of welcome, a word of warning, if needed.



Have you met Ace, yet ?

I would call her One, but he often said "I've got to look out for number One" when referring to himself and his life's affairs. I believe you will find this to be one of the most accurate statements of all .



There was a time we were not permitted to speak of Ace, nor the son she bore him in their youth.

You'll find she is nice, and lovely and gentle and kind...



More in common than you'll realize at first.

There will be differences, but more-so, similarities.



In the beginning, she offered a similar courtesy to me, though she was more brief and to the point:

"He's a liar and I don't care who he dates" she said.



She was finished then as I am now.

He leaves you no choice but to be.

You'll see, eventually.



I know stories will differ, mileage will vary.

Even now, he would have me believe his own fanciful versions of the story we were both there for, assigning himself roles of both victim and hero, while I am cast as villain.



Some days, he is nearly successful at convincing even me.

If I hadn't seen his fingerprints wrapped around young throats for myself, or if I could forget that night in Kentucky, my own breath obstructed as he carried me down our hall by my head, almost he'd persuade even me.



He recently shared with our youngest daughter during visitation, a version where I set out in search of some love, new.

"I didn't do this," he told her  "it was your mom who left me."



She is young, but not too young to remember the yelling and the fear he doused our home in, the struck match of grabbed throats and the hold-your-breath encounters when he wasn't very kind.



She remembers the Christmas tree, sailing down the stairs and the splinters of wood when he killed that dining room chair.

After all, it wasn't even that long ago.

She remembers him telling us all to go... and stay the heck gone, too.



He likes to say he hopes I find what I was looking for.

I was looking for safety and an end to the anger, to the constant battling our home had become.

I didn't find it and I don't walk away feeling his best was done by me.



Still, I wish you both the best and all the happiness that may be had under such circumstances.



May this third time be his charm.