On Processing Unnamed Emotions

This long-form poem was originally written and shared via my newsletter on November 1st, 2023

I stripped the cosmos clean today.

In my garden, where there once stood large swathes of orange fireworks bursting through green now lays barren and empty, not unlike myself. Have I stripped myself of color, or has it been stolen from me? The news I received yesterday has left me feeling bare: bare of feeling, bare of direction, bare of thought. Should I be crying? Why do I feel empty, instead?

I stripped the cosmos clean today.

My hands move of their own accord, through the cold and frigid air. The wind bites at my nose and cheeks, but I hardly register the chill. It’s not unsurprising to me, this feeling of nothingness. I’ve never been one with the talent to properly identify what it is I think or feel in any given moment. As a child, my thoughts and feelings were of little importance. Why would I understand what I felt or wanted or needed, then or now, if what I voiced was always deemed wrong? The only time I notice the depth of my freeze is when I touch my lips to my husband’s cheek, filled with so much warmth and life and love.

I stripped the cosmos clean today.

Along with the zinnias and the marigolds and the tarragon. All would have fallen to tomorrow’s frost, so I picked every last beautiful bloom. But what does that say about me? That I chose to bring in only the most stunning of the flowers while leaving the others to endure the freezing temperatures. Is this how I view the people in my life? My own family, my father? Did I cast them aside because they no longer served me without extending another chance for them to make things right?

No.

I may not know much—about myself, how to feel things in the moment—but deep down, I know that I often extend more chances to those who do not deserve it. Who will look at the extra chance, crumple it into a ball, and walk over me time and again. Deep down, I believe in the innate good of all, the humanity of all. So I offer up second and third and fourth and twentieth chances as if my heart didn’t break with each one freely given.

I stripped the cosmos clean today.

Will I remember this moment, this uncertainty of emotion, when I watch the color drain from the cosmos in the dye bath tonight? Will it leave me when I piece together the tapestry of the seasons colors into a quilt or will I forever be reminded of my numbness, my confusion, my heartache?

I stripped the cosmos clean today.

And all the while, I couldn’t stop asking if my father deserved these emotions. He will never experience them or help guide me through them. But I know that if I were to ask, many would say “Yes, of course, he is your father after all,” without missing a beat. But of course, this is where I have to disagree.

Instead, my answer would be, “Yes, of course, he is human after all.”

And no matter his imperfections of faults or inability to protect me in the ways I most needed as a child, he still deserves comfort and care. I can acknowledge that he likely did his best for me when I was young while also holding true to the notion that his best simply wasn’t good enough. Wasn’t what I most needed.

I stripped the cosmos clean today.

And then I talked to my friend, Annika. I spilled out the quiet musings of my heart, which she held tenderly in her own. She reassured me that nothing was wrong with me, that I am likely unable to process these complex emotions because I don’t feel safe to do so.

When will I ever really feel safe, though? I live in a body that does not recognize safety, it having been stolen from me at a young age. Logically, consciously, I know that I am safe. But physically, subconsciously, my body has not received the memo. It remains in a constant state of hypervigilance, and I do not yet know what it will take to show my body that it is safe. What is it going to take?

I stripped the cosmos clean today, and now my room is filled with bright orange fireworks waiting to ignite.

I actually wrote A Daisy in Lily’s Valley as a way to help me work through some very large, nameless emotions that had cropped up because of my battle with undiagnosed chronic pain last year. So, it is no surprise to me that so much of what I wrote then still resonates with me today as I sink deeper into my own thoughts, trying to process the emotions that will not come.

Until next time,

Brittani “B.A.” Franc