Titanium

Tuesday, June 9, 2021

More Ramblings from my broken brain…

I read an article on Medium that mentioned a poetry competition for Pride month. I sent it on to Samantha, my daughter, as she writes mind-blowing poems and encouraged her to enter. Unfortunately, the challenge is past due which I should have realized but didn’t. So, I decided to try my hand at it as the topic intrigued me. I am not a poet. I am a straight, middle-aged white lady as boring as they come, but I like a challenge and thought “what the heck.” Samantha is a fascinating creature with an incredible brain. She is in a long-term relationship with a man but is on a spectrum of sexuality. I’d say she does not claim anything. She’s just her, but I’d check with her as I may be wrong (as mothers sometimes are). The competition by Vocal was to write a poem about something that makes you unique, inspired by the idea of color. Grey is the color for brain cancer and is also a literary symbol for sadness. My childhood was mostly gray. My adult life has been much more colorful, but the gray still hovers due to my cancer and other life losses. I hope you enjoy my gray poem.

Cinderella

Titanium
Gray is my color (grey)
 
Gray for my first kitten who was tragically killed by a grey stone

     flung by a passing mower

Gray for endless winters cold and grey

     alone and lonely longing for summer

Gray for my childhood in all its grey confusion

     my youthful, winsome mom doing her best

Gray for the 3 grey hairs on Grandpa Ernie’s head

     his mind and heart I so deeply loved

Gray for the grey tipped pencils

     required at the ubiquitous schools I did bounce

Gray for the old grey-haired Serbian man

     I married too soon

Gray for the grey Oldsmobile driving fast, icy curvy roads

     Superior below, not caring if I lived, taking my hands off the wheel

Gray for the frigid grey Pacific ocean waves

     beckoning me achingly into its eternal embrace

Gray for the backyard grey fire-pit smoke

     I relished with my true partner

Gray for the grey lost years

     of mourning my living mother

Gray for the grade II (grey) brain tumor

     that haunted my thirties

Gray for the grey titanium plates

     that clamp my still sore skull together

Gray for the grey gadolinium

     that quarterly pulses through my veins

Gray for my grey-silver flute

     the craniotomy did take

Gray for the grey headstone of my mother-in-law

     who should still be standing in her beloved kitchen

Gray for my mother’s long, shiny grey hair

     that I now see with loving frequency

Gray for my brain that became a blank slate akin to grey slate

     as I lay not knowing I was passing quickly

Gray for the gross grey-matter

     that was skillfully removed last summer

Gray for the stage IV grey brain tumor

     that consumes my every waking move

Gray for the cold grey concrete floor

     my seized body woke to

Gray for the grey dust

     that I feel I must constantly remove

Gray for the growing grey flecks

     in both of our hairs

Gray for cremation, but.

     Not. Yet.

grey cashmere I wrap myself in

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