2024, You Are Loved

Excuse me I'm buffering

Excuse me I'm buffering
When I try to describe this suffering
And the cloud of darkness hovering
I just can't find the words

Forty-four Cleveland Clinic appointments
This year at the time that I wrote this
Looking up to heaven with closed fists
Counter to my usual openness
How does such beauty and brokenness co-exist
Lord forgive me but I'm pissed

And more so than anger
Or potential danger
Or the uncomfort I've felt from strangers
As they put their hands and fingers in places
I would have never imagined
Trying to guage the problem that my body's been having

I just need a break Lord
From this break neck speed
Nearly fifty hour work weeks
Plus all of the at-home needs

Plus all of those doctors appointments
And follow ups
Where's the wine
Fill my cup

I'm exhausted
I know no pain is lost yet
I'm losing my mind through all of this

The other day I forgot my keys in my wife's car
A few days earlier I forgot what time my
Daughter's pre-school started
A few days later I forgot what time her pre-school ended

As I pulled in and saw no line of parents to get their toddlers
Oh God am I a terrible father
Oh God why do You seem so unbothered with my cries

No that's a lie
I just wrote that for a rhyme
Because time and time again I've heard Your voice
And time and time again I still see Your hand

And I don't know how
But this must be a part of Your plan
And I don't know why
But You're shaping me into a different man
And I don't know when but I prophesy that this will end
And I don't know where but on this side or the other side in heaven

And I don't know who needs to hear it
But for those with chronic pain
About to go insane
Counting down the days
As you count up the money you've spent
From the dent left in your bank

If this pain has made me anything
It's made me more understanding
It's made me more empathetic
It's made my complaints in life
At least a little less pathetic

Forty-four doctors appointments now
Just for myself
I know there's a hell
And I wonder if it's something like
A stale room in a hospital gown

But none of my personal physical ailments
Compare to the appointments that weren't for me
You see the worst was for my wife Bri

Because in the same year of all my physical suffering
We found out we lost our third baby

A miscarriage
A mis-carriage
First comes love then comes marriage
Then you lose the baby so forget the carriage

And your left with some people saying that you should
Name it
But how do I name it when it's still an it
And what if I start to envision that it's a her
And what if I picture her as the third beautiful girl
In my trio of daughters
And what if I picture myself holding her hand
Only to wake up from my daydream holding the sand
Of a hour glass counting the time that never began

And what if I picture it as a him
A son that I've always been too afraid to have
Because I wonder somehow if to a little boy that I'd be a poor dad
Because I reverted to some anti-emotionalism
That many of the men in my life had

And what if I couldn't teach him how to shoot a gun
Or fix something broken
And all I could do was teach him how to shoot hoops
And intensely focus

On writing words that will be heard today and gone tomorrow
By a bunch of people who will go on with their day
And simply forget what you say
Not because their not moved
But simply because they are so moved
That they have to ignore your words
So they don't have to deal with their own pain

And what if the name I give my lost IT child
Turns out to be the name I wanna give my next kid if I ever got em
Would that mean that the twelve weeks they spent in their
Mom's womb were simply forgotten
And the pain subsided just because I had one to replace
What I had lost then
What

So I won't give you name except Happiness
Because the moment your mother told me
You were conceived I got this strange
Feeling you would be so much like me
And for a long time I would have thought that
Would have been a bad thing
But the last few years I've really learned to
Love myself
So the moment she told me I cried in joy
Because I couldn't wait to hold you
Little girl or boy

And I won't give you a name except Mystery
Because though you're somehow strangely
Etched in history
It won't be through the mark you left on this world
But simply just upon your mother and me

I mean it
Nobody has ever made me feel the way that you have
Because you came from my body
Yet I never held you
You made me smile yet I never met you
We have no memories together yet
How could I ever forget you
What a strange thing that you left me
But not because I released you or let you

And though Happiness and Mystery would
Be great names for you
The truth is I know both will not do
When I found out the news of your arrival
It was a dream come true
You still mean so much to me
Though I never had the chance
To mean that much to you

And though your lifespan was that of a merely a daydream
I rediscovered the feeling of you when I wrote this poetry
I knew at that moment you deserved and L name
Like your two sisters
An L name to have your place etched in the Le-Mon trio
An L name to signify the gift of you
Being sent from God above
When they ask me your name
I'll tell them
You Are Loved.