"The Crazy," A Poetry Post

When we got married,
everybody thought we were crazy,
including us.

Neither of us had anything significant except
uncertainty in our careers,
uncertainty in our futures,
uncertainty in our nows.

And I would not advise anyone,
at any time,
to take vows
under those circumstances.

However,
this is how it went down,
and we still got married
before a justice of the peace
on a small island
in what was seemingly an
unimportant ceremony.

And two strangers spent two years
figuring out that they were--
in fact--
apparently crazy,
which was to be expected.

Some days I would wonder if
one of us would just wake up and
walk away, walk away, walk away and say
FORGET YOU KNEW ME BABY!
ENOUGH ENOUGH ENOUGH!

That was me.

But we still stayed.

And sometimes we held our breath together,
like when the doctors told us your hip had
disintegrated,
and we were like,
"That's crazy!"
But I suppose
that was to be expected.

Or when we tag-teamed stitch removal
after the hip replacement
by taking instructions
over the telephone and
getting examples from a
Youtube video.

That was crazy!
But,
I suppose,
that was to be expected.

Or when I did that biopsy
with a local anesthetic,
and we watched the doctor
slice open a lump on my breast
in broad daylight and
stitch it back.

We were both like,
"That was crazy!"

But,
considering the situation,
and the people involved,
that was to be expected.

Every time we woke up together,
it was surprising.

"God, we're still here.
How unexpected."

Sometimes we struck the world together
like a freight train.

WHAM!

Like that year they almost
placed our son in
special education,
and we went to war for a
Black boy's right to
grow up and be awkward
without being
medicated.

That's when we figured out that
two crazy people
united
could still
make things be
sane.

GIVE US OUR SON!
GIVE US OUR SON!
WE WILL EDUCATE HIM!

I swear to you,
in those moments,
the whole earth stood
still.

And that was crazy,
but to be expected.

Our son learned to respect the madness
of high expectations.

Every bit of craziness has
cost us a bit of time, a bit of
energy, a bit of youth and been
surprising.

And finally,
it seems like things are
stilling.

Now that we are weather worn and
whipped almost senseless in
whirlwinds of doctor visits and
unimaginable crises and
family interventions and
personal challenges,
again the world has stopped spinning
to allow us to choose a direction.

And neither of us is crazy enough
to choose first,
because time has taught us to
stand still and see
the salvation of the Lord,
to look for his hand on the horizon,
even a small fist.

For once in many years,
we're both just standing in the
center of a large room,
amazed by a panorama of options
for which
neither of us seem to have the energy.

That's crazy.

You know,
it is highly unlikely that
we will enjoy this time of stillness for long.

However,
I suppose,
that is to be expected,
considering.

For now we will watch and wait,
watch and wait as we have learned to do together,
together in a highly unlikely kind of synthesis.

And then,
when we know the direction in which we should go,
again,
we will be storms.

-T. D. James-Moss