Posts for June 17, 2019 (page 6)

Today I spent the better part
of 17 minutes trying to find out
exactly what date someone I don’t even know
arrived in Dresden for a vacation. 
I can’t get that time back. 

Mother’s Day of 2018, a man hands me a rose and tells me 

I have the spirit of a mother. 

He tells me that just because I don’t have a child yet  

doesn’t mean I can’t be motherly 

and then asks me if I want children someday. 

“Kind of” is not the answer I give him

but it’s the answer I feel. 

There’s so much I want to feel.

I want to feel the joy of holding my child close to me 

I want the giggles and the heartbreaks and the growing pains and the hate you that comes before the inevitable  love you. 

I want to love a part of me that I did not know existed. 

I want to hold their hands through their first steps in life, I want to sneak them through windows when the doors seem closed.

But what if the hands they hold on to 

as they take their first steps 

are the same hands that aren’t able to save them? 

If depression comes knocking on their door  

like it did on their mother’s

will I hear it before it’s too late?

I don’t want to give my daughter lungs that never feel quite full 

I don’t want to give my son a load he cannot carry 

I am terrified to give something life that may not even want it. 

Just because they would be a part of me doesn’t mean they’d want to be.

I don’t want my child feeling so guilty that a part of them hates me 

for even considering having them. 

I cannot imagine 

finding the cuts up and down her legs.

I cannot imagine 

praying for the doctor to find his heartbeat twice 

I cannot imagine 

hearing my daughter throw up her dinner to fit into a world

she did not ask to be brought into.

Yes I love my children that may be or never will 

and that is exactly the problem. 

Maybe that’s why I have the spirit  of a mother; 

I want the best for them even if it means 

I will never have them. 

Death is final
devastating loss
a thread ripped
from the fabric
that can be patched
and mended
but never again whole

Dementia is implacable
loss in plain sight
a presence weathered
from the husk
that can be tended
and sustained
but never again filled

Clem-
en-
tine,
my
clem-
en-
tine
(ti-
ny
globe 
of
sun-
shine
and 
love)–
what
makes 
you
suf-
fer,
so–
here
in 
this
large
blue
bowl?

Searching for a reason to call
that never came
wanting to change the past
or forget what I’ve known.

We remember
it was never discussed again
you with your nickel plated Hercules double barrel shotgun
forcing confessions of infidelity.

You with your dual family
dual standards
ego centric view of reality.

Speeches of family first
whiskey drinking indoctrination before my first kiss
macho facade for all the world to see.

Designated driver when I was twelve
hauling your crew from bar to bar
doing what I was told.

PTSD arrives from many places
it hides in the recesses
rears it’s ugly head to slip away again.

The Hercules stood in the cabinet for years
holding the weight of the world
threatening to take control of your soul
to dispense our own.

hitching a ride
on infinity carousel heart 
racing my old red 
Keds skipping to blue beats

wheelchair angels barely 
breathing some spread-eagle
over ghost ponies some
ready to fly down that highway 

I imagine them back to life

The cruelest things
are the ones right in front of you,
just below the surface,
that lay there for decades,
your entire childhood or longer,
unnoticed and unnamed.

My attention deficit disorder
was the reason I drowned in homework
every night.
But I was too smart to
have a learning disability.
Reading The Grapes of Wrath twice
in high school
to get out of it
what everyone else got
on one pass through.

My father’s bipolar disorder
lurking his whole life
like a shark in calm waters.
Symptoms showing here and there
that just seemed like eccentricities.
Until he had a full-on meltdown
late in life.
And was finally diagnosed.
For years, I’d been arguing
with a mentally ill man
trying to win his acceptance.
For the last twenty years,
I’d been beating my head against the wall
trying to get close to him.
And now that wall had a name.
And it was made of solid steel.
There was never going to be any great day of reconciliation between us.
He was never going to open his eyes
and accept me as I am.

The cruelest things
are the hands dealt out
and played in the background of your life.
Betrayed by fate.
Damned by destiny.
Unseen until the day
you look behind you
at all the beautiful damage.

don’t sit under my apple tree,
don’t pick my strawberries,
don’t  trip in the tobacco,
don’t stomp my melons,
don’t dig my potatoes,
don’t snap my beans,
don’t cut my roses,
don’t eat my pie,
just love me
–only me–
–love–
me.

The Lisel Mueller
book smelled like you, but
only for a moment. It retreated into the print
of the page. Or you’re in my pillows.

Eyes closed, I retrace moments
of our short romance together.
Arms spread into wingspan, I brush the
walls of this hallway toward the next threshold
I will know with you- for a moment, that scent remembers, and I imagine the three runes
you described as you held up your inner forearm.

He celebrates his southern roots.
He smears pimento cheese on a burger.
He chops a little chow-chow.
He calls it jardinière.
He pops sorghum.
Nonplussed mon cheri.
He says “beans n cornbread”
and “bacon grease in a bowl”
He plays mandolin.
He’s a meat parts tattoo.
He’s a Toledo native.
His teeth need fixed.
He’s no good kitchen whiskey.
I have a grandpa who is proper bourbon,
buried in Maysville next to his ex-wife
because it was already paid for.