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Done pretending to be part of something that was never meant to be.
I have so much light in me.
But the skies here are constantly overcast.
I refuse to continue standing on the outside looking in.
I am strong, I am intelligent, I am capable; I deserve to be loved.
I deserve to bloom.

Real update… My struggle through postpartum depression.

I have finally- within the last few months come to terms with the fact that I was in denial of the affects of post partum depression and Pre partum depression.
No one ever mentions pre partum, they attribute it to being “overly sensitive” and “oh it’s just pregnancy hormones!” Like you must be delusional. You must not know yourself since you’re pregnant?
And that… Is when you actually start to wonder. You question yourself, your actions, your reality… Do you know what you are doing?
Why are you so depressed? You must not deserve this baby if you can’t even delve into what a magical occurrence this is!
The worst part is that you DO know how magic it all is, you have wanted a baby for years, you’ve mothered other children, fell asleep with them clinging to you, been called mama, loved. So you questioning your OWN child growing in your womb is pure selfishness!
You feel unsure and that is completely normal, but then a haze falls over you… When others are also unsure. You step back to realize you have no support net behind you, they’ve scattered, left you standing naked… Confused.
You reach in the dark for hands but are only greeted with cold concrete walls.
This is your mind. This is the womb YOU remember being told could not bear children… This is your depression. When you don’t just think it in your head, but verbally express fear that your child will be better without you, that you feel empty, that you are soaking a permeated in a complete darkness so intense that life inside you stirs and you stare wide eyed at the ceiling… “Please, please…. Get better” you ask yourself.
When your labor not only does not go as planned, but you’ve almost died. You tasted death in your mouth while demons with open hands grinned while you struggled to bring your child earthbound.
Strapped down, both arms outstretched, cold, naked, and sliced open. You hear him cry.
You couldn’t even give him the birth he deserved…
Guilt. For months… Every time you see him you want to hold him forever. Your eyes burn from all the tears they’ve cried, for him.
He is so full of love, hope….
Why are you still so full of guilt and fear?
Why do you feel so undeserving?
Why can’t you shake this? Why isn’t anyone helping as you are crawling…
Instead stepping on your hands, tearing at you… Blaming you.
He is finally old enough… He reaches up and wipes your tears. He nuzzles into your chest and with his tiny voice says “Mama.”
A light surrounds you, a ray of sun through the trees engulfs you both. “I La-ya” he says and tilts his head and he spirals his fingers in your hair…
The storm had passed. The grass is fresh. The birds are chirping. Your heart is filled with him. And he knows. That is all that matters… HE is all that matters…
You made it.

Peach.

Do you know who weaves your web?
Tearing the sheets from your bed.
Three points, three sides.
Three years, and the words.
Need me.

I was so small then, crawling through the grass with you, damp dew and laying to watch the stars.
Embrace me like you used to when I painted the constellations on your walls to remind you.
Just the taste.

Fingers spread, grasp, teeth sink,
the juices flow to your forearm where I'll forever reside.
Silhouettes still dance in your pupils.
Watch my breath floating into the humidity.
Coax me. I'll come.

Saree McClaran
July 6th 2013

Lux

Dwelling in the devil's hour.
Wake up, your head reeling with the last 27 years.
Has it been this long? This life? So short, but dragged out, living so many phases, so many faces.
Each one I'm still brought back to you.
I tear away, like a feral cat. You still lay out food for me, to make sure I'm still nourished.
Like a moth to flame you coax me and I remember the summers with salted skin and soft collar bones.
Index finger circling down down down. And I'm looking up at you.
Looking up to you, and looking down as you walk away.
Things we will. Never. Get. Back.
Things we will. Never. Be. Again.

And with your hand to mine we created colors so fucking vivid that they'd blind those around us.
Our laughter filling the halls, and how fast you peeled my layers back.
And how I learned even faster to build the walls back up. old ways new.
With promises that "It'll be different." Don't think it will.
I will ALWAYS tear you limb from limb, with a grin on my face that I inherited from the devil himself.

When my eyes pour the paint from your paint brushes and you dream of me at night.
It's 3 a.m. and I'm setting your bed on fire, ripping sheets to the floor and like a maniacal demon, am here to remind you of what we never finished creating.
Do you remember the creaking of the door and the echo of the hinges?
I laid on the floor in the bathroom staring at the ceiling when I needed you most.
Reds, Oranges, Purples... and you remind me of a song I once knew.

Singing words we never lived but pretended, finding ourselves through colored glass.
Swaying on boats, choppy waters and clear skies. Land Oh, here, I come.
And pull the drain. Swam up like a mermaid, transfixed on the designs in your eyes.
But when I grew legs, my first instinct was to run.

-Saree McClaran
July 4th 2013

I saw him.

When I was young I used to never question anything as reality. Now as an adult I know that monsters are very much real. I have seen the face of evil.
I have looked it in the eyes, and I've yelled "I dare you" in it's face.
With a smirk on his face, he dared. He tore my skin from my womb, made me shed all protective layers, showed me my own face at the bottom of the ocean before my last breathe would rise.
'Full of fire', he laughed. "get that from your mother" as he strolled away, parts of my soul in a locket... along with thousands more wrapped around his neck.

I laid swollen and defeated was flocked by voices. Dreamers, See-ers, and the such all surrounded me with a magnetic force, lifting me. "You know better". They sighed. A swift smack to my forehead to open my eye and toss me backward.
Cats always land on their feet.
"Close your eyes, close your eyes to see." I heard in a whispering chant.

See I did.
Her wrists gushing in the bathtub. "How fucking dare you" I shouted. "You know better", I cried.

As the car spiraled in three circles at the intersection, I remember the clouds being that perfect shade of cotton candy pink with a slight orange tint and smiling. It always made me think of when I was really young and we took walks together. I Love You. Three Squeezes.
I crawled from the car, I laid on the pavement. It started to rain. but the rain was little lockets gently falling from the sky. One in each hand, one for me and one for you.
I blinked and stood up and started running through a field of tall grass to get home.
The field I got poison sumac covering my body from. It itched so bad I still remember 24 years later.

I hid your locket in an opening under the heater vent by your bed, where the full moon would shine in. A man in white told me you'd find it there. But all I saw were a pair of sharp scissors.
I removed them and used them to cut my bangs short, my hair was wet so you got mad and scolded me. I looked stupid for a month....

But your wrists stopped bleeding... and the bath tub drained. You dried your hair and your eyes glistened again. When you weren't looking I snuck a peek. I cracked open your locket to see.
A ray of light engulfed the room and I fell back.
The clouds... and he smiled down on me. "Close your eyes to see..." he whispered.
I ran inside and held your hand... and squeezed it three times.

-Saree McClaran
June 29th 2013.

Laboring Seasons

Dear stars, come soon, wrap your light around me in a way where I am blinded.
Vibrations like magma, you crawl with anxiety. A quarter century and some change, rattle in your pocket.

Your fingers brush against the curtains as you wait, sun rise then set.
Holding on to the cotton fibers you swing forward; then out the window.
Hair tangles in the leaves as you've met your landing in thorned rose bushes.
Pale skin, light blue then dripping red as you thrash about.

The Galaxies are contracting.
Push. Breathe.
Dancing Dancing Dancing.
Summer Come.
With the hysterical moon rushing in, soothed.
The sun has wrapped her warm arms around you.

Arrive. Our Sweet Summer Solstice.

-June 20th 2013.
Saree McClaran.

I can't stop dreaming about you.

Rattle their bones off the mountain tops. Like handmade tambourines.
Scavenge to find your art, but make it.
Watch your step though, the hands still reach beyond the soil.
Bring you down, then lift you up. Just like you've always done.
We used to wait for hours, stars to sun, and moon met us in the mornings.
There is the soft waiting scent from autumn still on your skin when you thaw out each year.
I remember that September afternoon, driving by scenery and then off the road.
I stared at the blinding rays in the middle of your eyes that matched the threading of that old shirt.
All trust in Stendhal syndrome-esque dreams. The nostalgia ravages me senseless, pulling me with strings, your little puppet.
Obsessed with counting my steps so I could retrace them, the way you traced your finger tips along me...
Slivers from the tomb I've built and carried to my watery grave.
When you opened it and found I was no longer there.

Reborn with the spring, Bring fauna forth, you'll find me sleeping under trees.
Hide and Seek.

-Saree McClaran
May 28th 2013.