When the feelings come, the less-than-acceptable, less-comfortable feelings, what do you do with them? Where do you put them, shove them, send them off to? Do you allow them, the feelings, the space to come back at a safe and appropriate time – to speak their mind, have their due? Those feelings are an important part of you, of me, they complete our entirety. They have something they want to communicate, and once heard – like a child whining and carrying on about the need for its blanket, or stuffy, or about sister or brother pulling its hair – once acknowledged by the heart, the whining stops, the feelings subside, and peace returns. And like a child, when ignored, they dig in their heels and go on and on and on until they are heard, honored, felt, given space, time and respect.

My father moved from Seattle to Santa Barbara two weeks ago (even writing this brings now small tears to my eyes). I miss him, miss knowing that he is here, a twenty-minute drive away. The day he left you can bet I had a lot of feelings. That night, I let them rip – honestly, fully, no apologies, no manners, flying free in their glory, word to screen like a salve for my then broken heart. (And yes, I did let my dad and beautiful, loving step-mom know that this poem was being published today).

Feelings love to create – paint, sing, dance, draw, sculpt, cook, write, act, invent, play. What is your favorite way to express your feelings?

. Stuff

Today he drove away in the truck, big ass thing, twenty and two feet long, full of stuff, their stuff: sofas, seats, tables and cheese, for snacks, on their drive down.

Wheels pulling out of here, “I love you baby,” away from me, where I now stand Alone… this is how it feels… they are gone from me.

I hate the ones that took him, just now. And maybe he would have travelled anyhow, but now, right now it feels good to resent and blame and contrive these stories of abandonment, left to die – a part of me, feels dead.

I hate big trucks too. The kind that take the stuff, the stuff away from me, from the us, now of past, the stuff that comforted, created – I did not realize how much I needed it all, before.

Hate and hide, that is only what I want to do, and write: purge under the covers, screen on, stuffing myself with anything that the stuff gone can no longer fill.

I don’t care the sun is glowing through the haze in such an angelic way today, this hour. I don’t care that you love me, that I’m doing good in the world, that someone may want to sooth my momentary, discomforting hate away.

I don’t care right now. Because, this moment, this sad, sad moment is dedicated to the me that simply longs to beg,

“Please don’t go. I need you. So. Although I may be strong, too strong sometimes, too adept, independent, Daddy, please, please don’t go!”

As their wheels ride south to the sun, closer and closer to the final destination, away from here, away from me, my depths, a cloud shedding rain across this stretch foreseen, but not allowed to feel, until now, stir the storm here and I cannot see – good thing I am not the one driving.

.

to living sensual! xo Piper

Poem by Piper Lauri Salogga