Writer’s Block

I just can’t bring myself to write. Thoughts and ideas swirl around in my brain constantly but everything stops as soon as I touch the keys. Inspiration oozes from between my fingertips like homemade slime. I’ve gone through my poetry stash, leaving only a handful of unfinished pieces left to twist and pull and try to make sense of.

We’re in week seven of BB’s transition into his big boy bed; I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve gotten more than four hours of uninterrupted sleep. We’ve tried different lights, deep breathing, back rubs, baby gates, communicating with the baby monitor, tough love, time outs at 3:15am, shouting from our bedroom and threats to get him to GO BACK TO BED but nothing is fucking working. He wakes up (like he just did after three hours of snoozing) and cries for our attention.

I’m being stretched to my limit but keep pushing myself to work harder. My world is collapsing around me and I’m clinging to as many walls as possible, pushing steel and cement back up against the weight of themselves without result. My hands are bloody, my body is tired. I am hurting.

I keep feeling phantom kicks of the baby I’ll never have pushing out from deep within me, without any rhyme or reason. It makes me so, so sad.

My marriage is far from perfect but I am trying. Communication is difficult when you’re used to burying everything. Nobody ever told us how fucking hard it is to stay married. I still don’t know how my parents did it.

My father is dying and I can’t do anything about it.

I’m drowning in pools of sorrow and using food to stay afloat. I almost can’t fit into my pants anymore, and yet I still had to have that third cookie before bed tonight.

But I can physically eat without assistance. I can wrap my arms around my snoring husband, if I choose. I can feel my belly shake with laughter from my son, who I still believe is one of the coolest people I’ve ever met. I’m not reminded of my impending death every time I manage to lift my head to look in the mirror. Every day I have the ability to inflict kindness and hope, as we all do.

Life’s a bitch and she’s in heat. – They Live