perimenopause

Fading in

i am naked and spinning
unmasked and repenting
wasn’t i just fourteen
mere unwound hours ago
i breathed, i sang
a lyric or two, loudly
in my quiet voice —
cycled through colors
found beautiful hues
my butterfly wings
cripplingly morphed
to chrysalis again
— reflect retread —
growing wisdom in my head
thrust out the blonde hair
and that all the new
is gray matters not —
focus is a summit reached
rock bottom at the top
perimenopausal paradox —
if someone would listen
if anyone would care
from up here or down there
the invisible i have become
could unhide everted —
but what has burned out
is not the heart soul
bones mind or gut but
only the brittle shell
of youth — falling apart
shedding and crumbling
finally wasting far away
leaving a glowing
blossom unsplayed —

Terri Guillemets

Looking back at myself

i lost myself
and panicked
like a parent
who lost sight
of their child
— i looked in
all the places
i had been —
looked in all
the corners
of my soul —

it had been
so long since
i had seen
myself that
very nearly
i gave up —

but suddenly
one fall day
on passing
a mirror i saw
acceptance
in an old face
and realized
i don’t need
that little lost
girl anymore

Terri Guillemets

Fixate

lobotomy by sparrow beak
brain pecked full of dread
brimful society syrupy sweet
carelessness killing us dead
memoryvines creeping through
sockets of wasteland dreams

a humming vibration of stasis
stuck lid on boiling progress
jammed gears of regression—
a spinning orbiting rotation
would be movement at least

incessant click click click
of the going nowhere echoes
like fading robotic heartbeats
a constant why? why? why?
the most important question
that never even mattered
answerless, unanswerable

speedbumps of psychological
queries emerging like stones
in the body — stuck motion
mind eternally trying, failing
to write its story, click clack

bones, ligaments, thoughts
stutter sputter twitch to death
choking on ink overflowing
poems destined for somewhere
turned inward flooding nowhere

release my brain to infancy
for it is smothered with age

Terri Guillemets

Spiraling

midlife changes curled-up
forties are fiddlehead ferns
it doesn’t look like much
until it becomes unfurled
and once we get it open
things may break apart —

eventually nests unwind
but will we bear fortitude
to turn that new life into
something just as beautiful
and yet even more free
spiraling towards fifty?

Terri Guillemets

See me, hear me, I am fifty.

the world may see dried-up and irrelevant —
they may not even see me at all —

LOOK!  i’ve re-blossomed with beautiful new petals —
strength, focus, perspective, poetry, silver wisdom —

i am roaring out all that i have held in,
taken on, and put up with — for all my life —

i roar for myself and for all women
i roar at the top of my lungs with all my midlife rage —

LISTEN!  no longer can i do it all, nor do i want to —
i may be getting old, but also i am brand new —

Terri Guillemets

My heart sees all the better

my eyes can’t see as well anymore
but my heart sees all the better

my ears have begun to fail me
but I hear the quiet budding of success

I move more slowly now
but have learned to be still with myself

my aching body is stiff and sore
but my spirit has never felt so fine

my memory is slipping
but I’ve got a firm grip on what it is to live

my head is going gray
but I have found all my true colors

I get out of bed earlier
but still have plenty of dreams

I live more softly
but don’t back down from doing hard things

my teeth are getting artificially replaced
but my soul is real and all my own

my bones are brittle
but my resolve is strong

I no longer bounce back
but continue to look forward

I tell the same stories over and again
but become a new me every day

I’m nearer to the end
yet I have only just begun

Terri Guillemets

Fading out

syl·​la·​bles in my life
i cannot utter anymore
with the grace of youth
i stutter with freedom
and slur in wild love
words that once made
sense now are blind
faith doesn’t see and
hope rarely speaks
i’ve never needed you
to spell it out for me
the echo of emptiness
calls out like the sea
ebbing flowing waving
crashing shoring up
a million tear drops
whisper gently into
the gossamer of years
winds blow away our
comforts of home in
a smoke of memories
lost childhood remains
both here and gone
audible and sadly silent
echoes of those poems
voice words that sound
exactly the same but mean
something entirely different

Terri Guillemets

Battery

my youth is caked over
with heartache and pains
regrets and inflammations
and sudden calcifications
of ligaments and spirit
not-bothers and defeats
that went to my head
and bruises that take
too long to heal
cracked teeth and
why-tries and i’m-tireds

that which galloped
now rolls in ruts
my blonde has passed
to mousy and gray —
everyone i know
looks tired and frayed
sagging from the weight
of time and overbusy
and too much stuff
in too-big houses —
it’s too much life
and too little living —
no vitamines will fix this

Terri Guillemets

Awake’ish

my brain —
desiccating
deprived
of sleep
pulsating
too much
life today —

is

as i lay
here in bed
becoming its
own creature
trying to crawl
out of my head —

it throbs away
seconds ticking
memory flashes
of today tocking —

twelve o-three
twelve twenty
one eleven
two seventeen
three something —

fickle
in my mind
restless
the thoughts
runaway
hobos
on a train
down the tracks
to four o’clock —

how did Byron
how the F
did Shelley
write masterpieces
at such young ages
when it has taken
me 36 years
just to get out
three good poems
and entire reams
of bad ones —

how is it that
i wrote better
in my teens
in my early 20s
than i ever have
in middle age
and why won’t that
come back to me? —

oh my brain!
is it purring
or is that the cat?
these thoughts! —

why does
the inevitable creep
ever closer to me?
not crawl
but threaten
overpower
reach over me
horrific shadows
surrounding me
hovering
swallowing
with immensity
of darkness —

insomnia is
a sickness
and i am so sick —

in waking hours
of sunlight
the inevitable
is invisible
but during
wakeful nights
it suffocates
still invisible
but it is all
that i can see —

oh comfort please
i beg of you
curl up with me —

brain throbbing
wanting throbbing
future throbbing —
pink, rubbery, firm
pressing against
my thoughts —
all it takes
is one big fear
to sit on my mind
for all the air
of the future
to explode
with a bang
and seep out
with a muffle
leaving me
empty —

isn’t it interesting
that we can die
from too much of something
that we can die
from lack of something
for want of something
i could die
of lacking sleep
i could die
from too much
passion for life
they are intertwined
within me, destiny —

images or omens
flash through my mind
a watercolor painting
all the colors shades of black —

i have no regrets
in my past
all my regrets
are in the future —

the tree outside my window
is rapidly growing leaves
from bare winter
to verdant spring
but all shades of green
are the same with
night’s eyes closed —

i may as well
bring the typewriter
into bed with me
and let it sing
me a lullaby:
clack click clack
once upon a time
happily ever after
that is all she wrote
springtime mayday
brain overboard —

the cold chatters
in my teeth
warmth boils over
in my brain
and it helps me
feel better to say
the same over and
over in every refrain —

i cannot sleep
the loudness
of springtime
awakening
is deafening
even in the middle
of the night —

oh! it is two a.m.
oh two hundred
oh two oh oh
oh please
let me sleep tonight —

as i turn over
flip-flopping sides
my brain is turned
from black to white
it tosses a ball
playing ping pong
bouncing, falling
flailing seconds
minutes hours ticking
water dripping
from the faucet
into the sink
time drips out of
my leaky head
please let me sleep —

Terri Guillemets

written while teetering on the brink of sleep, from 00:57  to 02:13, and unedited excepting dashes