Days I Haven't Died

I signed the dismissal for my petition for modification of my daughter's custody today. I wrote a poem today about something like winter, appearing first as pretty fallen stars and leaving you with nothing but cold, loneliness, and hopelessness. You can read that  here. I know on the page of contents I wrote that I'd at least do my best, or promised, to post everyday, and I'm sorry, because I've failed you. Maybe that can be taken as a subliminal, because I don't always keep my word. I don't always hold my promises. Even if I do keep my word, sometimes, you'll find I've found the whole and hole in my words to leave you disappointed nonetheless. I'm trying to fix that, but how long have I been trying? It feels like eternity sometimes. I wondered why my sweat still smelled like drugs, why my feet still smelled like rot, why I was still paranoid about things that happened yesterday. It had been months since my last bout of any drug, I...

It occurred to me that I may be, in fact, losing my mind. Life seemed all too fast to slow down, but there was no one around who could understand. Fearless. It was once a word I used to describe myself. Now, walking the same sidewalk on the same street I’d walked hundreds of times before, I felt fear. I felt fear because things were too nice. Besides myself, nothing seemed out of place. I kept looking up from my phone, as if someone were going to be running towards me with a knife, or driving at 60 miles per hour off road at 5 PM. I felt like I was going to die. I was afraid I was going to die, but not afraid because I trusted I’d rest in Jesus’ arms. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the one thing that I feared more than anything. Peaceful acceptance of the fact that I am in fact human, mortal, dying, not a God, and now dead, in the Son of God’s outstretched arms. I feared for my daughter. But at the same time, the calm was so promising that I knew everything would ...

"Call me," had been the signal to shut my phone off. Sorry, Kristen. ~Carnivorous Cats~ My left forearm looked as if it'd been used as a shield to fight off a relentless onslaught of cats whose claws had never before seen clippers. There I was, that fateful night, out far past my bedtime, wandering in the woods. The moonlight played with the wind and trees to create monsters and mythical beasts in the corners of my eyes, but little did I know the real danger lurking all around me. I could hear the hoot of owls, the flutter of wings. Nothing out of the ordinary, I'd been here many times. If I'd listen carefully enough, I could hear the soft skittering of mice as they cautiously crawled beneath fallen leaves and logs to avoid becoming late-night snacks. The mice. It must've been the mice that had attracted them, the smell of their weak, tiny flesh that had led the bloodthirsty kittens to those woods. Tripping over a broken branch, I landed hard on ...