you said that before
the phrase defining rim walk
(how short, flat, this hike)
one day they will know
that we live thirteen hours
from the Grand Canyon
thirteen million years
of miracles waiting here
beyond this short hike
they’ll remember this
(and Eiffel, Spain, Porto, love)
all we’ve given them
the hike will seem short
flat, greenway, wheelchair-friendly
so easy, this life
thirteen years a mom
they’ll remember this spring break
miracles in view
torn between worlds
oldest loves her phone, sisters
gives in, goes to bed
she watches their play
with a slightly jealous eye
fantasy now lost
found only in books
or over a campfire
she joins them in tent
she still loves camping
sets the table like Mama
an organized queen
she gives in to catch,
to wood-walking fantasy
(Riona’s a horse)
(but she’s almost me
we share the same shoe size now
her eyes switch places)
if i could capture
her in my womb (my last trip
to the Grand Canyon)
she’d be my baby
in my belly, on my back
trails, trials of love
the things i will do
to win what love my girls give
sometimes hurt us all
weekend redemption
the ice cream cones they wanted
the park joy for me
they’re so up and down
i could forget sunny skies
but then, why should i?
clouds will always move
but the sun burns heaven-bright
on their childhood
this parenting age
with their school-age arguments
is harder for me
i’d take diapers, cries
over back talk, bickering
that leaves me crying
parenthood lesson:
it never gets easier
heartbreaking my days
his day and week off
waits before there’d be a bell
how can i say no?
pi day a success
although she tries to wreck it
doesn’t understand
(the lure of baked goods
can’t be wantonly handed
to palette-less grunts)
my interview fails
but why would i waste my time
on a blurred vision?
must. pass. Spanish test.
first? awards ceremony
(at least she’s honored)
then, family dinner
and Spanish happy hour
to close my chaos
never a moment
without a need, a desire
all for them, for us
four hours of tests
in this windowless hell fest
Spanish comes to mind
lunch union meeting
complaints about white privilege
first world problems
(i want to tell them
comparison is joy’s thief
but they won’t listen)
afternoon calls home
to parents of failing kids
Spanish practice dos
then video view
lesson to evaluate
slim chance at progress
audio walk home
on a windswept cloudy March
words too fast to grasp
(Alice wonders why–
in Carroll’s Spanish version
–so many choices)
then daughters’ chess meet
and oldest’s plea for pi day
(dough pulled from freezer)
kitchen now stolen
by eggs, bowls and pastry cream
we drive to Wahoo’s
kids eat free tonight
run wild while hipsters drink
(we rush home to bake)
tripod ends my night
(yoga the only answer
to this chaos)
and now i’m writing
resolution of ideas
not broken by tests
renewal of youth
snow melts a fresh round of spring
riding carousels
why wouldn’t you want
to see their sunny faces
romping through the zoo?
i don’t understand
ask peace from yoga nightcap
after goodnight hugs
i won’t stop writing
or being the mom i am
my words hang, waiting
you’ll analyze them
and wish that things were different
when they’re just the same
perfection scares me
i’d rather be secondhand
not worry for stains
for we are all marked
by the pieces that make us whole
glued together here
in this photo, see?
her eyes are my eyes, your eyes
wild through and through
I’m angry because even a good day with the kids can end as a hard day of being a parent. Because I fight for those closest to me, I put them first, and I still feel like I am driven into hell in the process. Because I love them so fiercely that it hurts, and their tears are my tears and my truths are their truths.
I’m angry because I am a friend, a true friend. I AM the one you can call on drink number four in the airport on your way to rehab after your family’s intervention, and I will listen to every damn slurred word and offer my condolences and love you and be right damn there for you when you come back and fight for you and defend you and take fucking sides for you and build up my enemies like walls against my progress in this life. Because I am your friend.
My loyalties are fierce and my bitterness is fiercer.
I would never beg to make plans and then cancel them. Twice. I would never rearrange my entire schedule to be absentmindedly forgotten for a snooze button. I would never let my best friend go, though she hated me off and on for years, because I knew she was meant for me, and I fucking fought for her, and I got her back, and I damn well will never lose her again. I would never say I am too busy for the person I once swore I loved as much as my husband of seventeen years.
Instead, this Saturday, we play Life. It lasts too long, he rushes us through the end, and Mythili wins (OF COURSE). We go to the park, the Perk, sip tea and nibble scones, Isabella does her interminable homework with her blue-collar Bud-Light-neon-signs-in-house best friend and my mother texts me wondering why we never ask her to come to the park since they live so close now. I offer the zoo for tomorrow and after an existential pause that lasts between two doses of learning the yoga headstand from Adriene, three piano songs played alongside my baby, and reenacting our Oxford memories with a hacky sack we toss across the living room knocking over pictures and plants, she replies with, “Your father isn’t interested in the zoo.” Though they live ten blocks from it. “Is he interested in seeing his granddaughters?” I die to text back. But I’ve learned to hold my tongue. And my fingers.
I’m angry because when I put them to bed there is a flashlight fight and search and a reminder of two nights ago. And I pull the Target bag off the top shelf and dig through the bug spray, the spare brush, the sunblock, the sweat-wicking longsleeved shirt, the set-aside items for a summer camp that’s never going to happen and find the fucking flashlights because Mythili will NOT go to bed without her book.
I’m angry because he murmurs from the room about my tenacity in setting aside these items, never to be touched between June and June and the baby going to her first summer camp this year, and because my dumb semi-drunk mouth just spills it all out in front of them: “It doesn’t matter because they’re not going to camp this year anyway since we don’t have the money.”
I’m angry because my mother sends these random texts such as: “I’m just wondering about life” and tells me about her millionaire uncle dying without a will and how tracking down his thirty-three nieces and nephews will take years as most of them don’t talk to each other and I have put nothing but Love and Love and Hugs and Cuddles into the lives of my three girls and I do NOT. Do NOT. Want to put my baby to bed crying tonight because she doesn’t even get to go to camp for her first year because I don’t have the damn money and we spent it all on a fucking car and my millionaire mom is going to inherit another thirty thousand but won’t even come to the goddamn zoo even when I offer her a free ticket.
I’m angry because I try so hard to be there. To find joy in those small moments that make up a day, like spinning them on a tire swing or singing along to Taylor Swift videos or opening up the yoga book or cuddling with our books in the corner of the couch or piling on top of each other in an array of pink to red.
And I would be there for the friends who ditch me. For the colleague who won’t even eat lunch in my presence. For any task at any job anyone would ever ask me to do.
And why can’t they? Why can’t you?
Just be there. Fucking. Be. There.
a firing squad
she puts home guilt on display
ready, aim, fire
tears rest in corners
no escape from the bullets
questions expose truth
home guilt is misplaced
her weakness is on trial
we leave dragging weight
it sits in silence
she buries herself in books,
shows with good endings
(if i opened them
then she’d bury herself here
in her mother’s arms)
i fear it’s too late
she’s survived the jury’s choice
now waits for justice
yet, she’s only twelve
surely more trials will come
she’ll acquit her dreams
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