She pushed the last box in the car,
then smacked
a kiss on your cheek. ‘Goodbye
Mother;
see you later.’ And with that, your daughter left.
She
no longer
lives here with you.

That is to say
that your arms
left
their sockets; your legs took off alone.
Your skin
stretched so far, it cleared your flesh.
And your heart
– your Armour Heart, your Guerrilla Heart,
your
Amazon Heart – it broke in two, so one could fly away.

No comfort here;
how could there be?
All reason went on hold,
and breathing was suspended.
You grabbed your arms to hold yourself,
to not
explode, star-like
into a million powdery pieces
to sail the vast
black and lonely universe.

A fire tore
through your heart
– without armour now;
neither Guerrilla, nor Amazon –
while voracious walls of flame
of pain and rage
turned all hope and light
to ash.

A flood ripped
through your gut;
its overflowing waters
roared
and the torrent
stole away
every one of your desires.
It spat them out,
delirious
– through foaming mouth –
against the hard and silent
stones of emptiness.

Inside your head, a whirling tornado
spun and mixed
your brain cells in its centrifuge.
Synapses severed,
your neural pathways
turned
to dust. All you’d known and knew
was nothing now.

As if that weren’t enough
the ground you stood on
bent and buckled
beneath
your wobbly feet. You couldn’t even walk.

What’s left, you asked,
when all you loved went after her?
They all abandoned you
And you no longer cared for those that stayed.
The films, the books, the crosswords,
The plants, the pots, the paintings,
Your wisdom,
your science,
The recipes, sex and poetry,
Your peace, your love, your laughter
They all took off
without you.

Your body would have liked to follow her.
Follow love; follow hope.
Wait!
you wished you’d yelled
sprinting behind that moving car.
Wait for me; I’m coming too.
You wanted to wave her back.
But no;
you knew.
That,
was not allowed.

Look at them all,
how they flew off together
without a care, aimless and unfettered,
joyful murmuration,
gaggle of beloved rebels,
anarchist balloons,
spinning off in all directions.
They all took off without you.
Leaving you alone
alone, alone …
screaming it.

How could you still be alive?
How had you not died?
No answers there.
But one of your little pieces
whispered:
I wanna die. She said she didn’t want to
and couldn’t
go on like this.

She was right:
no part of you wanted to
and
none of you could.
You wouldn’t, couldn’t;
you wouldn’t, couldn’t;
you COULDN’T.
How was it at all possible?

Even Shakespeare’s witches
came to stay a while
to conjure up disaster.
‘Come! Something! Come!
Come and burn
and break
and rend; come and bring this to an end. Roll
a mountainous tsunami. Thunder
an earth-swallowing quake; crack
a charring bolt of lightning!

Sadly, only silence
followed.
No, there was nothing out there in the space
beyond the limits of your skin.
The universe was still
and
almost nothing happened.
At least,
everything outside of you
appeared to be unmoved.

The only storm was you;
The fire, the flood,
you. The whirling tornado,
you.
You, you, you.
And they didn’t end
your unbearable being,
your unlovable being, your insufferable self
that whined and wailed.

The storms
however,
had laid bare your wounds.
The deep ones.
revealing
the old sores of your old soul.
Your wounds and sores:
Your sorry family of sorrows.

The ones that wanted you;
called for the balm of your eyes.
Your kind-eyes’ gaze of reassurance,
the soft-warm down of your friendship.
Yesterday, today and all the tomorrows.

You surrendered – because you’d lost
your fight.
You gave in
to the lull-effect
of the quiet drifting of the clouds.
Night overwhelmed
and took you;
Dreams sought you out
and found you
– small bats homing in through sonar –
and together
– your Armour-Guerrilla-Amazon –
Heart
and the Night
and the clouds and the bats
and the dreams
found a fresh threshold.

Later;
some days later,
or much, much later;
imperceptibly,
on tiptoe and by magic,
without you knowing,
small particles of oxygen
passed into your lungs.
Droplets of blood
seeped
into the ventricles of your heart.
That Armour Heart,
That Guerrilla heart,
That one:
your Amazon Heart.

Today you woke
and stood on your still-shaky
feet.
They walked you to the kitchen
to drink
your cup of resolve; to eat your breakfast of faith.

You’ve lived too long
to believe
in the fairy of assuredness
and today you rose, just wondering
if perhaps,
nothing at all had changed.

Your daughter is your daughter.
And she’s well.
She loves you very much.
And you love her,
so much.
with the love of always,
and more.

And you,
are who you are,
though maybe not exactly who you were.
Periodically colliding
into
yourself again,
and still you recognize
you as you.
Today you love yourself,
with the love of always
and more.

Terror aside,
Here, you breathe.
your heart beats here,
Here are you
together,
with your Armour heart,
Guerrilla heart,
Amazon Heart.
All of you awake and standing.