These are the hands of every person who helped me through it

Everyone has a color 

I know you know that

Soldier

With no ulterior motive

I wish I could apologize for

Cutting your legs off over & over again all those years 

She has found needle and thread I see 

Sewn them back on 

Sturdier then before

You both stand together now 

trees full of wind

(I'm so glad)

Lately there seems to be 

Not 

One

Free

Moment 

We have bagged the entire contents of our home and removed it

Drywall

Dust

Literal walls

Wood

Wood

Wood

Closets

And put it outside to be taken away. 

We took a perfectly good house and destroyed it to make it exactly what we want 

_what repentance feels like

You 

Are not a bad person. 

You

Have done bad things. 

Take them all. Write them down. And walk the opposite direction so that maybe you have a chance. Maybe he will no longer hurt you if he decides to do the right thing. Maybe you will be able to cry about letting another man have you. 

Then maybe the two of you can walk arm in arm again. Broken. Dirty. 

Flawless.

Not about your sister

Like a piece of leather 

Sharp and tight

Like your body 

Everything on you is in the right place and I am wearing a wrinkled jacket that i was excited about, a TShirt and boots that I've had for far too long but they're pointed and so I felt fashionable enough 

What.

Will I fit in here? 

Can I bring some sense of normalcy here? Authenticity? 

Am I judging you by even asking these questions somehow putting myself above you

When really how I feel is 

Not good enough 

Ugly

Frumpy

Like a cozy sweater 

And hair that just saw sand on a beach 

An introduction of sorts

Mostly it was the scones. 

You may think I'm joking but I'm serious. That and the way the sun bounced off everything on the kitchen table, the way the flowers leaned in lightly toward the window with their waists in water... The rummaging of children beneath our feet and babies on knees and morning breath and the steam of coffee. The way Jeannies homemade granola tasted with yogurt and the light color blue that had licked the entire kitchen. 

But mostly, once our hearts became deeply connected, once we had each learned to practice this rythmn of meeting, we discovered  we weren't lonely & we found, with time, a deep satisfaction. 

You can be married and still lonely we discovered. And lonely is a strong word, as each of us were surrounded with people and family who loved and cared but there was something we all yearned for. Maybe it was just the scones. 

We were careful to admit it: that there was something at this table that felt necessary, something that we had been missing. The words came out slowly like dripping and we said them with caution so as not to say we weren't happy or that our husbands weren't amazing or that God wasn't enough. They are recklessly enough. & we were passionately happy. but I think we all found, the four of us, at that table, that

Women need women. 

Katie and Andrew

With this love may you say 

I want you

When the grass is tall and untamable 

I want you still 

When the red takes leaves with its paint and pulls them slowly to the ground 

When you are winter Over and Over and You look at him and say I'm glad you are my home 

When the flowers are such vulnerable seeds with no color

children in the soil 

This is when I want you

And no more 

And all the time 

Katie and Andrew may your love be always and incredibly full of patches as your love will cover ever hole that could devistate until you are mosaics and the patches are remarkable 

Ron

He is a plum with legs 

If I were to describe how to treat him when I leave I'd ask you please never raise his price, he will only be in your chair for fifteen minutes 

He will never ask for a shampoo

And he will tell you about the wood he chops, the lawn work his wife has for him or the trip to Florida where he watches baseball with his son

He will change his schedule during golf season

Take the length carefully up in the back, just along the edge of his scar (you'll see where there were stitches) 

When your on the right side of him talk loudly, he has lost hearing in that ear 

And do not forget to trim the braidable strands of eyebrow hair whose texture is that of Asian noodles 

And never tell him i said he is like a plum because I mean it in the most endearing way but he may take offense

It's a funny thing 

I thought I was in charge but 

I am not in charge of the blush tone in my cheeks just now 

I thought I left that color years ago 

There she was 

In my home 

Anxious 

Small

But made him feel like everything except 

The taxidermy version of himself 

He wanted to be with you in every room 

And every hour 

Of the house