Ever After

Words should be
beautiful like flowers.
But roses, like life,
seem sinister now.
It seems there is no way
to protect yourself
from the sudden
sting of torn flesh
if you bend close
to breathe deep their perfume.
And ever after
you smell blood
in the summer breeze.

Only words

We read your latest book together
and afterwards she turned to me
and said
"In the end, it's only words, you know?"

In the back of that darkened hall
I watched the slides flash across the screen.
A unmade bed and an open window,
your hand slid into my lap like a whisper.
I let your words wrap around me like so many tangled sheets
and fill me like a lover.

Even now I hold a piece of you
under my tongue like an aspirin
or candy.
I poke at it over and over,
a wound that wont heal.
I suck on it gently and taste
what I thought I knew.

Once

Once I was
walking towards
the end of a pier,
I saw myself climbing
over the rail
hanging on tightly
for a moment
and then just letting go.

When I fell
as we so often do,
I imagined it was only the beginning
of a long journey
towards somewhere I thought
I wanted to be.

Eventually the falling
became something else
that I wanted
to escape.



Now I close my eyes
and look to the horizon.
The sun is setting
and all is forgotten.

Rain

When they ask me
what it was about you
that made me forget
the songs my grandfather sang
in his cracked leather chair,

I will not speak
of long walks down a darkened hallway,
or the woman in the mirror
tearing at her blindfold.

I will not tell
how the ocean sounded
in winter, as it splintered
against the rocky shoreline.

No, I will say only
that I was a desert then,

and you smelled of rain.

Changes

When it comes down to it, I am at heart a writer. I think I always have been. I've been playing with words and creating stories in my head for as long as I can remember. For too long now though, I've neglected this part of myself. So I am making a commitment to myself to write something, anything every day. I need to give myself permission to put out things that are not perfect- to not worry about the end result- to just write. To write the words I need to say, the stories I need to tell.


Clouds
You asked me what I saw
up there and I
said "A figure 8 wearing a hat."
Not the old man from down the hall
who wears cardigan sweaters and too much cologne,
who came home late last Sunday night
smelling of Irish whiskey and,
who, when he saw me
sitting on the old porch swing
wrapped in your grandmother's afghan,
called me Maura
and began to cry.

Diving In

I have spent the better part of three years now treading water. This morning I decided its time to go for a swim again.

I am Ashleigh. I have a (mostly) wonderful husband and 4 (mostly) wonderful children, 3 of whom happen to be living.

After my second son, Owen, was stillborn. I started a blog that saved my life, but as the time has passed, I no longer feel at home in that space. That was and will always remain Owen's space. I think I'm ready to find my own space again.