we are girls becoming women
and women reliving girlhood.
all it takes
when times get rough
is a dodging-traffic drive
a sled down the mountain
endless screaming and dancing
a squished spider’s funeral
meals for twenty-eight
movies all night
and
the elixir of life
breathing wintry air on our skin,
popping out our souls
on the goosebumped flesh.
we are girls
girls
girls
becoming women.
beliefs
Inheritance
it is true what i say:
i have no idea who you are
or why he married you
or why it is that
you put your hands on her
whose sting
carried over
into the shadows of my childhood.
i know i wouldn’t be here
spitting out these vicious words
if it weren’t for
your egg, his seed.
and i am thankful for that.
but your countenance?
your picture in my memory?
it is nothing more than
a vague recollection,
a fuzzy image,
rough around the edges,
someone who couldn’t remember my name
nor cared to ever learn it.
when you go,
tears will be shed,
but not mine, nor my mother’s.
we all know this is true.
you have lived your life,
given purpose to what we want:
to be better mothers,
to stretch our love
into those shadowy places
where your hands couldn’t reach.
Un
am i really what you say?
do i hold the key you desire
to unlock unending questions?
i wish i could be the master of your domain,
the keeper of keys that would undo
every confusion you have inside you.
but as i trudge through these questions myself,
i find myself unable to unlock my own desires,
unable to open the door that leads to dreams.
What They’ll Remember
what they’ll remember
is this fire that
shuts out the frigid winter
with a crackle and zip,
a whip to the wind;
this shuffling of places
on the couch,
bottoms in laps,
blankets bundled in
heaps of warmth;
this mother with arms
wrapping love around them
as they switch places
and fight for their turn;
this father playing monster
from the floor,
his whiskery face
lit up amongst the flames;
this quiet game that
lets all the talks out
and erupts in unsuppressible
jubilant giggles.
what they’ll remember
is nothing else from
this day,
this night,
this part of their lives,
nothing but
love and warmth and happiness.
You, Me, Him, Them
this is how it would be
you, me, him, them
being all grown up
while the kids
entertain themselves.
this is how it would be
if everything became
what we believed it would
back in the day
when dreams
were still imaginable.
this is how it would be
you, me, him, them
laughing into the night
eating delectable food
remembering our past,
planning for our future.
but it’s not,
and we all know
it never will be.
it will be just you and me
like always
talking about
you, me, him, them
and trying to figure out
where our dreams went awry.
Skin
perhaps i wasn’t born for this.
is it etched in my skin,
a tattoo of failure that follows
me wherever my words take me?
they pull me down,
anvils on the dock,
seagulls pecking at my skin,
offering the freedom i can’t have.
i wish my words could be the wings
that could carry me away
from the place where i’m inadequate.
where i could be real, in my own skin.
instead, they’re thrown back at me,
hateful darts into my skin.
if only i could pluck them out
and send them where my heart belongs.
Sarcasm
i’m so thrilled to know
that the class i dread the most
has the neediest, rudest students.
i’m so thrilled to see
that every imaginable computer problem
will happen seventh period.
i’m so thrilled to hear
how well my not-quite-eight-year-old
understands sarcasm.
i’m so thrilled to know
that you think i need to read a book about defiance
so i can begin to put her in line.
i’m so thrilled to remember
why it is that she and i were not defiant.
fear is a great facilitator of submission.
i’m so thrilled to hear
the temper tantrums and talking back
that follow me everywhere i go.
i’m so thrilled to be
in this place i cannot escape from,
in this hollow where i don’t know who i am.
let me be thrilled
about something for real:
that you will never read this
(not knowing who I really am).
Carry
as much as i hear what you say
i will never understand why.
how in any right mind
could five rooms full of
talking-back teenagers
ever compare
to the jubilant joy
of young children
dashing through the snow?
their voices carry
like songbirds emerged in winter,
shutting out all the
whipping wind’s hollowness.
yet,
you would rather be here,
trapped in our windowless dungeon,
feeding them the lines
you’ve spouted so many times?
i’ll take my two weeks
and carry them in my mind
on my forever vacation.
for now,
i will draw a zipper across my lips
and, for once, be polite.
after all,
this year cannot carry on,
and summer’s sun,
giggling girls,
and road trips
beckon my dreams
from your harsh reality.
Dimension
i am not here in this moment
of screaming, cussing anger.
i am magically moving my father’s car
into another dimension
here, at home, where i have a husband
who in thirteen years has barely
raised a voice, let alone allowed a cuss
in a world that is love, love, love.
you may pull forward your Sorento
and disappear into your hateful reality.
i prefer to remain in the dimension of love
that shields my heart from your evility.
you will drive home, your elderly parents
unable to determine where they went wrong.
i will drive until he takes the wheel from my
shaking hands, his hands on my hands, my heart.
Underbelly
we are here now,
sister, brother-in-law, niece,
grandparents who have filled
the underbelly of the tree
with Wal-mart’s
explosion of Chinese reality.
he and i lie in the dark
on our basement floor mattress,
the tint of the waning moon
lingering light upon his whiskered face.
Santa has already arrived,
stripped down because
the underbelly of the tree
regurgitated its recklessness.
i will never forget,
i tell him,
this time at my own
grandparents’ house,
when my mother,
her measly salary
half of my father’s pittance,
after seeing the
gifts my grandmother
inundated us with,
turned to him and said,
‘I hate being poor.‘
i try to remember this
as we rise before the sun,
set up the camera
in anticipation of their anxious faces,
and spend hours
exchanging money, goods
from the underbelly of the tree
that seems to mock,
wealth, wealth, wealth
with its shedding branches
that drop needles
like tears onto the hardwood.
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