Truth in love.
I wait for you
Not very patient
Confused, battered,
Ramming my way along.
I wait
Unaware
Sit still
My phone buzzes
For weeks we play
And argue, pray
The kids
And the house are too much
Schedules do not match the hectic torrent
Activities push inside the safe places
Beyond capacity of normal life
My phone buzzes, again
Slip and fall
Show and tell
I resist the answer
The force of the accident
pushed our honda pilot
the intersection,
potential oncoming traffic.
Our four children,
and two young dogs
were in the car
the man barreled in
the back of the car.
He didn’t see
the red stoplight
apparently
apparently
unstoppable force
uncontrollable power
In the shove
bodies were jarred
Heads snapped
Shoulders twisted
Metal bent
Necks snap, too
Buzz
Buzz
Buzz
Buzz
He answered my return call to him
Calmly he said
We are all okay
a-okay
the right kind of okay
and I whispered to the women
surrounded by the women at work
I need to go.
A bike ride,
A ferry ride
Far away they waited for me
I left.
For weeks,
Days wandered slow
I muttered to the air
afterwards
I would be left on the outside,
the only member of our family of 6
“safe” during the accident
My terror for what happened
and bit and pieces
of the story came to me
off-handed comments,
and body symptoms
aches
unstoppable bang
clashing every time in the car now, too
I named the force
to bring normalcy to the new agitation,
anger,
and pain
awakened in the bodies of five of my family members.
I ached, too.
A couple of weeks earlier,
I spent a week in retreat,
therapy fighting different forces
old evil messages
entrenched in the smells, the skin of my life
fought
wrestled
kicked them gone to the other side
back where they came
then the cars collided.
I can’t say what could of
Or would have happened
Or if the force had stopped
Before it hit the car,
The car with my entire life inside
inside
Of it
He yelled
And screamed
In anger distressed
Confused
Hurt
Pained by the wounds
Wounds from lives lived inside
Meant to beat his soul
soul left open
not dying
A reveal of honor of naked
And bare stumbling
In the light we shared together for the love we had
And where I could sit with him
And tell the truth
Its force untamed the kindess of heart and bare soul
tumbling out
The truth was unstoppable
My response of anger, hurt,
Repentance and more repentance
more truth emerges in ways
Take me away from here
Get me out of here
I pleaded with God
See me
See him
See us
Things I wrote about were true in the day when my phone buzzed
Living in front
My eyes
Children
Young adults
In their pain
Said, “Mom, believe us…believe him…believe me…”
Shrapnel is gone.
Carefully plucked
Out of the legs
Arms, head, eyes
And mind
The imprint of pain remains,
A reminder of terrible great force
Truth is nearer now and when it’s born it sometimes is very distant
I don’t like that, honestly
I can say that it did happen
That the force didn’t stop
The rails fell off
And in between the distress signals
Measures of grace
Eyes opened gave way to more life
Then death.
Scales covering wicked evils
Patches over eyes hiding in the light
And scraped wounds
Bleeding and gaping
Ignored by the life-force dragging us
On through.
But, not anymore.
Its refreshingly hard,
Difficult,
Strained and wandering through our minds
We can’t get our heads around it
daytime or the nighttime
The in-between loves of life don’t tell me much more than
Keep trying or better yet,
Dip your toes, “Danielle” or “Daniela”
Into the beauty of truth
Truth held in love
pain
suffers so I often write about
But don’t want to really experience
Not really.
Not now
Not then
The future doesn’t promise me much
I know it comes near
Yet, drawing me in closer and closer and closer
It’s the tractor beam
But, truth is I am just ordinary, and fine with it
Working, living life, parenting
Enjoying the good days
Mostly loathing the bad ones
And taking them all slowly because I don’t want
them to rush too much
Never too fast because time is an unstoppable force as well
Moving
Changing
Shifting
The truth of love
Unfiltered
Outside of space
The time stands still
Advocating for me and for us
Its fresh lovely
Wanders and smells of grace capture him,
Me
The force of the car
Cargo inside wanting to tell me to slow down
Truth cradled and rocked,
Stowed deep
give them resource of unconscious magic
I bear what I can,
And what is not possible
Is faced largely imperfect.
Mother of four and wife of one awesome Mexican, Danielle Castillejo is a 2nd year student at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, studying to get her MA in Counseling and Psychology. She works and volunteers part time in an organization in Seattle that advocates for the agency and freedom of commercial sex workers. A survivor of abuse herself she continues to fight for sanity and love every day.
