THE JOURNEY THIS FAR

FOR JAHA ZAINABU

January 1, just a promise to myself
afraid to say it out loud since I
have broken so many before
a poem. a day. every day. 2013.
this time. do it. no matter what
I thought it would be hard,
but not painful, difficult but not
gut wrenching--new and used
poems, some reworked, revisited
I didn't know I would be staring
into my own soul every day
checking in, wondering
what I would/could possibly
say out loud, what truth I 
would dare to put on paper,
tap into the screen--whether I would
be brave or bold or stupid enough
to keep writing. everyday. one poem.
just. one. every. day.
and there are these days when
so much of the world makes me
want to crawl backwards into
the beginning of chaos, it's so crazy
the news so horrific it eats at me 
and I'm supposed to write
about it, to call the names that will 
be lost if I don't
and the names haunt
my dreams, and my waking hours
and I can think of nothing else
even when I'd rather write
of tender kisses and strong hugs
and laying vulnerable with
my lover, the news. everyday.
and when it's not the news, it's my life
crawling from the ooze of strangle
the struggle to be human
to get up when I'd rather sleep
the sorrows away, when I'm so
damned depressed, I don't want to talk
not even to the two or three people I know
gets me. but that poem is calling. everyday.
and I write. because Jaha will read it,
if no one else. because she's the only person
I've told that I'd do it. every. day.
but it's May 15 now.
one hun-dred-thir-ty-five days in
and I've run out of ways to cry on paper
or to make love to the world, or to advise
my children or chide my own fool self
and I think--365 days is a long time
to try to figure out how to tell a story. every day.
I want to stop writing. every. day. but
there's at least one person who gets it.
and she's writing too. so even when I
want to just stop the world. just get off.
just cut every piece of life out of me so the pain will stop
I don't. every. day. I consider it--quit.
and then I don't. I write.
the crap. the joy. the stuff that would
embarrass my mother, make my last lover
ashamed that I knew these stories now
I write because I'm a woman
and women are being raped
slaughtered. found in captivity 10 years later.
girls who are gorgeous can't get reporters 
to pronounce their 10-letter first name
and the poet in my is enraged at the carnage
from drive-bys and bombs at marathons
and women on fire. every day.
and seasons change in 365 days; it was cold
when I started. we've seen the rainy season
and summer is peaking at us from behind
May's dress. and so much changes with the seasons
lovers I loved and still do
friends who gave up on me
another friend's adopted baby. someone's marriage
I resigned a job without another to go to.
my Elder said: you don't have to know now what you
will do; you just have to know what you won't.
so I quit. not the poetry. but the job.
decisions. every day. 
to give away a whole house of furniture
to keep at it. to teach. to preach.
even when the last thing left is to believe.
and sometimes. I don't believe.
but you're there. reading. and making me
think about it. we are brave, you and I.
to write. even with all this pain outside
and within us. I like that we talk about it
even when we hate our own writing.
how we help each other believe.
keep writing. every. day. we say it
to each other, even when we don't talk.
just. keep. writing. every. day.
so we have no regrets. 
we will celebrate this on December 31.
That's what we say to each other on May 15. 
we know it. because we hold each other in 
the craft. in the art. in the writing.
when the news is bad.
and good. when lovers are gone.
or plentiful. when we are happy.
or so sad we cannot speak.
tomorrow will come.
and we will be writing.
because this journey.
this far. is not alone.

© Valerie Bridgeman

May 15, 2013

NOTE: On May 15, Jaha and I spoke for over an hour about the process we'd entered--to write a poem a day every day in 365. We agreed to each write a poem, "The Journey This Far." Here is hers: The Journey This Far.