with stressed frustration
my mother’s voice comes through mine
i’m a child again
only now? my girl
is the brunt of my anger
yet she bounces back
resilience through love
something i was missing then
my mom aches to fix
life’s a big regret
played out in haunted voices
singing us to sleep
is this my year of
baggage dug up from
depths beneath the earth
where i thought i’d buried
every last tag of remorse?
is this my year of
bricks stacked up along
a wall that keeps me
from where i am
and what i ache
for on the other side?
is this my year of
rain poured over my soul,
quenching the ardor
beneath my skin,
drowning my senses
until i can no longer breathe?
is this my year,
my year that i have to
let them go
let them go
let it, let it go?
i heard what happened
in a roundabout way
as all families today,
over Internet connections
and telephone lines,
communicating the news
of those who can’t communicate.
i cringed in my mixture of pain, guilt,
of love, sorrow, my emotions
breeding from those moments
in my childhood when i sat,
holed up under my blankets
in a dark room of punishment,
wishing i could be instead
in your arms, your wet kisses
rough on my cheek, your
planned-out dinners and desserts
waiting for approval,
your I love yous ending every sentence.
instead, you have been moved
from one dark room of punishment
to another, shuffled around
like a naughty child,
no parent (child or grandchild)
able to solve the dilemma of your age.
i am one of them,
two generations down,
with young children of my own
who will never sit in a room
wishing for your warmth.
all i can do with
the electronically-presented words
still ringing in my ears,
is hole up in my room of punishment
and wish that i had called you
before they took your phone away,
wish that i had visited
before He took your mind away.
Without this, we wouldn’t be here today—
I would still carry the guilt
that hovered ghostlike in my soul
for eight harrowing years
and you would still not know
what it was I had done to you
(some might say that’s better)
but you and I, we both know
that the blemish I could never
quite cover up bumped out
on the face of our love and your
discovery became the astringent
we both needed to wash it away.
now we face our future together
you with the phantom of a beard,
me with my imperfect (but so
loved by you) freckled skin,
and I know that without this…
(pain? grief? remorse?)
we wouldn’t know how to face
whatever will come tomorrow.
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