Getting Through The Pain

The sadness was so deep
The grief and loss
So tremendous
That I did not know
If I would survive.

I was walking through a room; I see myself
Even now, suddenly aware
Shockingly realizing
That I longed to bring you back
To fill the empty places.

In my dream I had patted
Ronald Reagan on the back, said, “How’re you doing?” as I passed behind him where he sat at a dinner,
Dove down deep to fasten the shiny metal plug of a swimming pool filled with hot water,
Piled leftover candy in boxes and helped clean up after a well-attended women’s event,
Got my (younger/different than actual) daughter’s ipod and switched if off for good, so that she would sleep.

And then I suddenly remembered I had
Forgotten to apply for schools and the deadline was about to pass,
And I needed to do it right away but was not at all sure if
I had the necessary requirements anymore.
I felt lost, alone, afraid.

And finally, I was walking through a room not knowing
How I would survive the loss of what I had known.
I did not know any way to
End the interminable grief,
The emptiness of having no one.

What I remember thinking is that
I had done it once before,
Had found a way to go on,
But this time, the pain was
Life-threatening, unbearably raw.

As I walked, I was also my observer
(I see that now);
The pain was so intense that I probably should have been
Crawling through the room, pulling myself by grasping fingers,
My body a word picture of the interior me.

Perhaps I woke myself as
A saving measure.
Perhaps your phone call
Came at just the right time,
And I woke to see, it was only a dream after all.

Your phone call that I answered,
Remembered it had been over
For quite some time already, you had been gone for ages,
And I was no longer in raw pain
Trying to figure out how to survive.