Happy Creative Writing Tuesday! It’s a thing, I’m making it up.
One of the things they don’t tell you about marrying someone who has lost a spouse is the incredible survivor’s guilt you feel. Whether it’s other voices making me feel insignificant or the small voice of self casting doubts, there are days when you feel like you’re in a shadow. As autumn descends on the mountain, I find myself coping with all my feelings by writing a lot of poetry. I am, however, ever insecure about my poems, so this won’t be promoted on the Becoming Still Waters Facebook page or on Instagram. I just hope that whoever does read it understands a little bit of what is in my heart as I struggle with these feelings of inferiority.
My house is haunted by many ghosts,
A few of my own fabrication.
But some real as old friends,
Though only known in spectral state.
Some are harmless,
A sadness sweeping softly
Through the kitchen floor and
Whispering through the chimney.
“I’m sorry,” I want to whisper back,
But it means nothing,
A hollow in a vacuum of grief,
My acknowledgment insulting.
Some are violent,
Accusatory furies, talon and tooth
Tearing my heart, shattering identity,
A reminder that I don’t belong.
“I’m sorry,” I cry back,
Apologising for the deepest happiness,
Guilt stricken that I should have joy
When all around is sorrow.
But her ghost is a cozy ghost,
And I feel her in journals and coffee cups,
She walks with me in the quiet,
My strange friend I didn’t know.
In the clearest day, she is not a shadow,
Not a hole I cannot fill,
But we understand each other,
No threat to a memory or present.
I’ve grown to love her dearly,
She who loved the man I love,
I think of the jokes we might have,
And wonder how to grieve a friend I never met.
My cozy ghost and I haunt these halls,
I think both of us a shadow,
Accusations misunderstanding our hearts,
Seeing saint and sinner only.
Becoming Still Waters 