poetry

A Mother’s Guilt

/ lovizmytrio / 3 Comments

Are mothers destined to be plagued by guilt
that stems from houses we’ve carefully built?
Can we escape remorse from what we do?
Can we give to them and to ourselves too?
When a child is sick and I sleep all night
my heart feels a pain that’s tugging and tight
Guilt flows from the money that I bring back
from work that whispers to me what I lack:
Time with them to be the one who attends
and in the dark of night, to make amends.

Am I destined to be harassed with shame
as I search my soul for what desires blame?

Kids’ Pics Then and Now

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Just like when I was a child, they’re obsessed
with examining pictures of themselves
and
there are only a few minuscule differences
between what they see and what I saw

I used to creep into the hall closet
and lug our wood- and cardboard-bound
construction-paper-filled albums
down from the shelf,
curl on the couch, knees crossed,
opening the pages so many times
that the punched holes holding them in place
began to tear by age nine,
the photo stickers began to peel off by eleven,
and as a teenager, the books
were almost too fragile to touch.

Now, in fifteen seconds,
I open up the laptop, command-click
five albums and then the black triangle,
choose a playlist that they all enjoy,
and watch as they, mesmerized,
view a three-seconds-per-pic slideshow
with dissolve, bubble, and fade—in effects
that I never could have imagined
when I was their age.

Just like when I was a child, they’re obsessed
with examining pictures of themselves
and
I think how much children are still the same
while the world around us is so strikingly different.

My Dearest Hyundai Accent

/ lovizmytrio / 1 Comment

Dear Hyundai,

You have seen better days. Once you had only a small crack that stretched along the bottom of your windshield, never interfering with anyone’s view of the road. Now it has expanded, curving around the passenger’s side like a snake searching for its food, stopping just shy of the center so that the driver can still see.

Once you had a smooth exterior, your silver paint unmarred, your skeleton strong and resilient. Now my sister and I have beaten you, pushing a dent into your back right side, scratching the skin from your back bumper, pounding a tree that knocked off your front bumper which is now attached with plastic zip ties, and tearing your headlight off with an unfortunate scrape with the garage door, destroying both your interior lights and the garage door in the process.

When it’s dark in the morning and I must flip on the upper light in order to see how fast I’m driving or which way to adjust the thermostat, I can’t help but smile every time. You and I, we know where we’re headed, no matter how fast.

I steal glances at the odometer from time to time, and after nine and a half years with me, and two years with the person whose dust-cover over the dash has left permanent glue marks, you are just now close to 100,000 miles. I can’t tell you how proud that makes me.

You have seen better days. But in all these years, my Hyundai, my tiny compact car that with the right effort fits three little girls, car seats and all, in the back seat, you have taken me everywhere I’ve needed to go. And you have done so with no more than $700 in repair bills, no trumping of another car’s beauty, no less than thirty miles per gallon, and never a complaint from me.

Love,
Your Faithful Driver

Soul Searching

/ lovizmytrio / 1 Comment

soul, where are you?
are you hidden inside the air of my lungs?
are you squeezing between my intestines?
are you burning through my veins,
following each blood cell to its capillary?
if I poke a needle deep enough into
my internal organs, my stomach, my liver,
will you escape and leave me lifeless?

or are you only in my mind,
somewhere embedded in a wrinkle
of cerebellum tissue,
whispering to the rest of me
that you are here, here, here,
that you will always be here,
in the darkness and the light,
the sorrow that follows the fight?

is it my heart where you hide?
beating your way out with each
strained pump of blood?
soul, I search for you sometimes
and cannot find where you have hidden yourself
though I know, somewhere within,
you will guide me, give me what I need,
and bring me to the fate that you have chosen for me.

Step Write Up

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This year I run into writing
even when it brings me pain
because pain breeds good writing
even when it brings me criticism
because criticism makes me more determined
even when I’m too tired to write
because lack of sleep is inspirational
even when I feel it’s going nowhere
because it always goes to me
even when I hate what I put in words
because no words are ever wasted

This year I am stepping write up
and revising who I am.