What Color is Your Love?

Put your arms about your Beloved and swing into a slow dance.

Rainbow

I walk to see the darkness
I walk to see the sun
I journey through the ages
return to fit my glove

I look inside and all I find is love

I walk to find the devil
I walk to find a god
wrestle with salvation
tap out to smell the smog

I look inside and all I find is love

now why would I
want more to find than love?

My love’s a Rainbow
many colors deep
a drunken fool
an angry beast
A light too bright for eyes
a black too thick to see
current too strong for courage
a slope to steep to ski

I look inside and all I find is love

Song and Lyrics by Amy Obenski

Wait

"Oh, No!" She cried in the midst of her dream.

Oh No! awakened her, without the memory of why the foreboding and despondency was coming through her in waves like nausea.

The mirror told it all. The dark circles. The sleep tangled hair. The frown frozen on her face. The dried salt rimming her eyes. Telltale signs. Had it been a long dream? It had been bad?

What was it? Seeming to be her mother? Looking back against time? Regretting and understanding the missed opportunities for cherishing the joy? Instead dying into the darkness?

Perhaps.

The awakening to the sense of the glass is half full. Half full with a cesspool of dark liquid threatening to suck her into the burning acid of heartache. It tortures her soul. She clings to the side of the glass. The fragile glass, like herself, ready to crack under the weight of pressure.

The cup of tea, the piece of toast, the swallowing of pills. Nothing to detract from the sensations of the dream still enveloping her.

Hang on! Hang on! It will go away!

Wash a dish. Feed the cat. Pace back and forth. Clean a cupboard. Keep distracted. It is like a persistent oily, ugly debt collector his foot well placed in the door. Hold him back! But, he has gained entry, and now inside, is at the shoulder, leaning his face too close, breathing stale air.

No escape! Grab a banana. Turn on the TV. Make some pudding. Clean off the counter. Put a banana in the pudding. Add some walnuts. Yes. Food will put it off. It used to do that so well. Like an alcoholic with the relief of a drink. But, no. Food doesn't do it anymore.

The grip is in the stomach. The eyes are tight. The forehead crinkled in pain. The cheeks begging for release of tears. The prayers for comfort. But, it does not work. So, it is another bad ride.

All she can do is wait it out.

Nothing to Fear, but Fear

I fear I am not in my perfect mind. - King Lear

afraid to break free
from depression
negativity
self-loathing
and loneliness.

afraid I'm not worthy
afraid nobody likes me
nobody needs me
wants me
loves me.

Afraid I'm incapable
of loving
being loved
or accepting love at all.

afraid of making bad impressions,
saying the wrong thing
at the wrong time,
of reversing my words,
slurring my sentences
into indistinguishable pratter,
stuttering aimlessly,
repeating myself----
not making any logical sense.

afraid food is stuck between my teeth
or booger hanging from nose
afraid teeth aren't white enough
or hair isn't shiny
it's too short
the bald spot showing

Afraid mascara will run
like the time
at a party
the guys commented
about my "unusual eyes"
I never knew it was smeared
'til I got to my car
rear view reflection
a raccoon woman stared

afraid of making friends
afraid of trusting
of believing in genuine kindness
or truth, honesty

I'm afraid to go to the beach
afraid to wear a swimsuit in public
afraid others will see my scars
the Bride of Frankenstein
afraid I smell like the Bride of Frankenstein
my body odor is offensive fifteen feet away,
or, worse, private secretions.
After all,
I can smell myself from here!

I'm afraid someone will get too close.
afraid of closeness
afraid of not having someone close.

I'm afraid my too-tight pants will split a seam,
afraid my zipper's been open all day,
and afraid nobody likes me well enough
to tell me,
"Hey, your zipper's open,
your make-up is smeared
There's a booger in your nose,
food in your teeth."

I'm afraid of not thinking clearly,
not being understood
not being heard
not being liked.

I'm afraid I spend too much time being so afraid.

Worst of all,
I'm afraid of not being anything else but who I am.


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Acknowledging Fear
An exercise in self discovery
From Writing Class
Written summer 1976
Elizabeth Munroz

Suicide Attempt? or Blessing?

I was a youngster, practically. And I used to cry and moan and twist in pain in my hospital bed, saying "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus," and "Oh, My God"

Now mind you, I was pretty much out of my head not only with the pain, but the morphine they were shooting into me every four... or if they forgot, five or six hours, sometimes later. Some compassionate woman from down the hall, got herself out of bed to come find the one who was calling on God. She found me and proceeded to tell me how she would pray with me and for me. Praise the Lord, thank you Jesus...

Oh, my. I shut my mouth and smiled at her. There was no way I was going to get into a religious argument with her, no way I was going to go through a major guilt and conversion session, and soon she was gone. I was very bitter, and at that time was Atheist. Little did she know that I had been cussing, "taking the Lord's name in vain", otherwise I don't think she would have been so interested in praying with me. I guess I should have said "goddammit", as my Mother would have said if she was hurting.

Doctor MeanGuy had been in that day to tell me the tests showed my bladder was shreds and there was nothing they could do with it, except connect the ureters to my bowel. Of course that would mean a lifetime of E-coli infections and who-knows-what-all backing up into my kidneys.

I knew little medical terminology. But I sure as hell knew bad news when I heard it.

Since I had cancer and wasn’t expected to live anyway, I just thought I would take things into my own hands and get it over with. I was so despondent about what that doctor had said. I had had enough surgeries!!! I had had enough pain and suffering. I had enough of hospitals, doctors and nurses. Enough of living in fear.

Needless to say, the little old Italian woman, Mrs. Calabresi who was in the bed across from me, (four to a room was a luxury in those wards) watched all this with bright eyes. I loved that old woman. I don't know why anymore. Every morning the priest would come in to give her last rites, every afternoon her adult kids would traipse in to see if she had died yet, and quietly leave. Every evening she would attempt chat with us but mostly listened. I didn't know much about her diagnosis except that she had something terribly wrong with the arteries in her legs, ( I think) and she couldn't walk and was expected to make her exit quite soon.

So, that night when I decided to cut the intravenous line and the bladder catheter tubes (one came out of my abdomen) she figured it all out, got out of her bed, and walked over to me. I was so shocked to see this, you'd think Jesus walked on water! Anyhow, she lovingly stroked my forehead, I got tears in my eyes. Real tears not the tears of the frightened girl in pain. And she touched her heart, then my heart, speaking in her broken Itali-nglish. I understood quite a bit, anyhow, as I lived in Niagara Falls. Either you were Italian or Polish, I was neither but heard the languages all my life. Anyhow, she said things like, “you be better, God will help you.” That's the woman I could be honest with. “No, God wont help me, I don’t believe in God, I'm mad at God!”

She completely disarmed me by saying: “You no like God? Tha's okay! Madre di Dio si curerà. God's Mother make better!”

My mind went completely blank... a concept I couldn't conceive, God’s mother? Calabresi had me and she knew it.

"Okay Now? A pregare la Madonna You pray!" I just stared at her. "You pray! I pray!"

I couldn't say no. I would have done anything she asked me. She had a "green scapula" with her. (How it suddenly appeared threw me. Did she have it in her hand all along and I didn't notice. Why, of course!) She held it up for me to see the Blessed Virgin. She showed me the words encircling her picture. Then we said the words together.

"Again!"

We said it again. We repeated it quite a few times. Then she put it in my hands and curled my fingers around it telling me to pray all the time... well, three times a day, ten times over, or maybe it was the other way around. By this time I was hypnotized, and I can't even remember how fervently I did this. Though it really did calm me, and I felt prepared to go beyond, whatever that would be. I still was mad at God and still didn't believe in him. (Yes, yes, an oxymoron, I know, but had little logic back then. Hmmm maybe less now)

Soon the nurses were in there putting in a new IV and one catheter. They couldn't do anything about the one leaking into my abdomen. The doctor would have to repair the damage surgically.

So, that was why I was cutting things. I had scissors, but no razor, so this would take time. Damned nurses. If I had turned that light on needed assistance they never would have come in all night long. Just when you don't want them, they come along and bother you.

So, the next day, they had to take me into emergency surgery. After I woke up Dr. Neisen (the nice one, see? I remember his name after all these years) came in beaming. I was still kind of druggy from the anesthesia but so glad to see him. He said, "I don't know what happened, but your bladder is all in one piece. All we had to do was sew up the hole where your abdominal catheter was located."

Smiling nurses came in to see that I was comfy and all tucked in. When they pulled back the curtain, I could hardly wait to tell Mrs. Calabresi. But her bed was all made up tight as a drum. She and all her belongings were gone. Nobody had to tell me where she had gone.

The next day, I asked for the priest. He came in. I told him about the miracle, and that I wanted to become Catholic. After he asked a few questions he told me no. It was impossible. I was a married woman, on my way to a divorce and previously baptized and confirmed in a non-catholic church. I was pretty insulted. After all, it had been a Catholic miracle. He agreed it couldn’t have been anything less. But that wouldn't make any difference where my soul was concerned.

He left, and then I was REALLY pissed at god!

For a long time after that though, I went to the shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Youngstown NY, and had some peaceful times. But, I never converted, even after the "rules" got loosened.

This is the tip of the iceberg of how I coped with the diagnosis and surgical challenges. Very badly, until Mrs. Calibresi stepped in. Then, very calmly, because,  “Tha's Okay.” I could always talk to God's Mother.

Worried?

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“Don’t worry about what the world needs.

Ask what makes you come alive and do that.

Because what the world needs are people who have come alive.”

~Howard Thurman
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