Category: Family

Relocate. Reset.

Mom said she was going to leave Dad
couldn’t take it anymore
we moved.

Relocate. Reset.

Bullying at school was out of control
I couldn’t take it anymore
we moved.

Relocate. Reset.

Truancy became a problem
then there was the rape
school said I had to go

Relocate. Reset.

Sisters moved back home
one unhinged,  the other battered
Mom said it’d be better if I left

Relocate. Reset.

Shuffled boxes from one relationship
to another, changed careers
like hairstyles – bored?

Relocate. Reset.

Never did grow roots
too good at packing up
trouble comes

Relocate. Reset.

Tell you more, but we’re about
to pull out, the road is calling –
you know how it goes.

(Written in response to The Daily Post prompt: relocate)

Sleeping Alone

Sleeping alone –
so intrusive –
a child born of
so many intentions
awash in a trail
of barricades

I cope, cook up
breezes, strike
wet ground,
stuff myself
to satiate
the onslaught

ground rapidly
shifting –
Earth Mother
exerting presence –
too stubborn,
I turn away

Look for
God, but my
cup keeps moving –
I am unreachable,
charmed by
a broken tale

aimless,
oppositional,
overwhelmed –
cry out but
absence holds
no listeners

need adhesive
to fix this urgency –
a peerless torrent –
if only I could simplify
these wounds
find a stopgap

emotion
bubbles up
overflows
manifests
external turmoil
replaying sorrow

sleep offers
no repair
alone
tormented
by the issue
at hand.

(Image: blogs.voanews.com)

Mothers and Daughters

A child hides
tricks her mother
into believing she is lost;
This is not a game, Mother says,
panic still coursing through veins,
visions of abduction blinding reason.

Mother knows
what six-year-olds cannot:
that simple outings can turn –
unexpected loitering around corners,
the certainty of menace; she is wide-awake
cautious, protective of innocence in her charge.

Where was my mother,
she wonders, when I wandered away,
younger even than this one, when unattended
I roamed the neighbourhood, left to my own devices,
did she not know about danger, about shadows lurking,
and how did she not feel the tug of fear for a child’s loss?

Cannot remember
a time when she felt anything
but mature, responsible, forgot
she was a child, seldom felt alone
and yet was she too not vulnerable –
ponders the conditions of parental love

She’s a grandmother now
watches as another generation
of mother and daughter negotiate
the parameters of independence,
feels the same lurch of terror for
the precariousness of youth

eyes the preciousness
of childlike wonder with appreciation,
recognizes that one cannot bear responsiblity
for the endurance of such an elusive quality
that in all things, loss gives over to rebirth
and in the end, reverence settles back in.

(Photographer:  Sylvie Salewski)

 

 

Koolaid

Yellow was the colour
of their house, green
the lawn upon which
we played – the house
of boys where fun lived.

Ours was two-storey,
red brick with black,
the colour of our air,
privacy fences blocking
outsiders, girls within

Never heard a voice raised
there, was served only milk
and cookies in the kitchen;
could not understand why
Mom said don’t go inside

but they had mini cars, and
trucks with working parts,
better than our dolls, and I
wished I could be a boy –
less complicated it seemed

And I wished my mother
played tennis with the ladies
and watched from the kitchen
as children played baseball
offered Koolaid in the heat.

Had a friend there, a boy
so kind and gentle, taught me
respect, protected from harm,
let me be me – was it love
I felt, at such a tender age?

We moved away, though,
left that sunshine house
behind, lost touch with
friendship, never again
to connect with neighbours

Everyone has something
to hide, Mom said, implying
ours was the better devil,
drank her Koolaid, too old
now to undo childhood’s lies.

(Image: suburbman.tumblr.com)

Must Have

(Originally posted May of 2014, this poem describes the early days with ME/CFS.  This is an edited version of the original.)

Rain pelts against my window,
cheered on by a relentless wind.
Inside, I lie motionless
on my once-yearned-for
now resigned-to
bed.

Target has those things you’re looking for
texts a daughter, pic attached.
Exactly what I’m looking for
but a million miles away
when energy fails me

Instead, I give in to the fingers
of sleep, pulling me in –
blessed unconsciousness,
oblivion.

A door opens below me,
footsteps, a voice:
Do you need anything?
I don’t respond,
too weak for words.
Do I need anything?

The question reverberates
through mind…
emotion…
body…
comes up empty –
what could I need?
too much
nothing

Rain abates, wind subsiding
and a brief ray of sun
brightens the room –
a promise
of spring
of new beginnings,
and I think:
I need clothes

but clothes means shopping
and shopping means energy
and the cycle continues
and still I lay
unmoved

Then you enter,
an offering of tea
and a gentle word
and with renewed momentum,
I shift to make room for you,
and it all comes clear –
You are what I need

You are my must-have.

(Image: heartofwisdom.com)

Missing

Have you seen her –
the child we lost,
the one who lost herself?

born to a sister
breasts not yet ripe
for motherhood’s call

a passenger
on a perilous ride,
sweetness eclipsed

by a cacophony
of raised voices
the wails of women

helplessly trapped
a smothering drama;
how easily she escaped

slipped from our clutches
found comfort in the streets
preferred coldness of strangers

to the raging fires at home;
lost her to the lure of parties,
an elixir for the empty places,

found her once amongst
the debris of discarded needles
and the haze of sexual reek

the golden halo of youth
now matted clumps of shame
her beauty sunken in shadows

we’d taught her well, it seems –
the art of submission, how to
betray the self, embrace defeat

tried to pick her up, create
a milieu of normalcy, establish
homelike roots, but shams

do not last and she ran again
the echo of her absence a hole
ringing in our hearts, we are

guilt-ridden, apologetic, fear
the power of our inadequacy;
try to forget, justify, cringe

for the child we lost,
the one that got away,
the one that lost herself.

(Image: alwayslonliness.blogspot.com)

Preposterous Business of Balance

I have tried to be pragmatic,
to adopt a religious perspective,
even found potential in support,
driven myself to make peace
be a model for my family,
a yet, no amount of contriving
can help me get over
the incest thing.

Dirty secrets
define our family
support ugly cliques
fearful of helpful outsiders
questioning probability
of untainted providers
dubious of alliances –
a sense of humour,
our only strategy –
we united psychologically
divorced ourselves from evils
projected into outer circles
confined to chaos

If I married my paranoia
to a more thoughtful version
of self, would that create
a calming union?
could it be that we are born
with checks and balances,
and is it even legit
to presuppose that balance
is achievable, and what about
partners – don’t they bring
their own amount of excitable
energy to the mix, and
how then is equilibrium
supported?

(Image: smashinghub.com)

A Wedding Blessing

(I penned the following poem on the occasion of my son and daughter-in law’s recent wedding celebration.  To read more about the ceremony, visit :  “Blessing of Interracial Union” )

A son is sweetness and strength and mystery;
here is my son – a gentle soul, kind-hearted
and generous – wasn’t he just a boy, only four
asking his father for work so he could buy me
a pair of earrings: Suns, he said, like you, Mom.

How did that boy, once so caring that he’d save
his treats to share with older sisters, sisters
who would turn around and snub him – he
never seemed to care, accepted it with a shrug
tried again – how is it he is now a man, married?

Always the loyal friend, is he, with an ear for
the downtrodden, offering a hand; I’ve watched
him struggle for independence, study hard,
labour tirelessly, he is a man of vision, a man
with a heart big enough to hold all his dreams.

I want it all, he once told me, eyes focused
on a future only he could see – I read joy
in his countenance, felt pride swelling, knew
this day would come, knew the moment he
first spoke the name Warsan he’d found love.

Warsan, truly good news, precious as the sunrise
her spirit bright, her smile contagious, she is
brilliance, and thoughtfulness, and I could not
have chosen better: a child I can love as my own
a woman our family embraces with open arms

What wisdom can I offer these two, joined
together in love, driven by a commitment
to one another, to family, to shared vision?
Be your best selves, I want to say, approach
anger with tenderness, and pain with warmth

Hold fast to one another in a world that will
challenge you, and know that I will be there
behind you, a rock to your storm, and that
others who have gathered here will do the same
And know, above all, that we celebrate you

Marriage is a vessel, a beginning, an opportunity
It is a bowl in which to place your dreams and hopes
it is a coming together of values, histories, a blending
Let it always be your soft place to land – today
is a new beginning; may this blessing continue.

Teach Her Well

(Poem inspired by previous post:  Choosing Self Love )

A locked door
a screaming sister
a mother in despair

a child rejected,
scorned, neglected
blames herself

carries the cross
of her mother’s burden
through passing years

bears responsiblity
for a husband’ poor
choices; bleeds guilt

is still the child,
wounded, insecure,
her needs abandoned

desperation motivates
her thrust for control,
to orchestrate harmony

cannot see the fallacy
disappointments repeating
loathes perceived inadequacy

needs someone to unlock
the door, quiet the yelling,
hold her through her fears

teach her that in compassion
is detachment, that she is
worthwhile, and deserving

begin a legacy of self-love,
initiate a path to healing,
release these lifelong tethers.

 

Thwarted

Have been unearthing the boxes
of my subconscious, clearing ill-
cast tales, intent on an end goal –
restitution at very least, but

my sister, no stomach for process,
wants to suction up the guck –
impatient for a quick cleanse –
plugs the workings:  therapy,

a finicky machine, falters,
water oozes between cracks;
we are flooded by mutual
wounds, personal emoting

ankle-deep in truths neither
can bear, waders, all thoughts
of sanctity dissolving, and I
espy cobwebs forming, corners

once cleansed – dysfunction’s
mockery of hope – reminder
that when roots are rotten,
scars are reluctant to heal.