The One After Me

I will pass it onto another generation. My daughter will have an eating disorder in her teens, because of something I said. Then she contemplate suicide, and have to see a counselor, and I’ll be helpless. I was so close. She’ll be closer. Her avalanche is worse. Her building is taller. Her car won’t hesitate to swerve. Her knives a bit less scary. Her bathtub waters a bit safer. Her pill bottles on a lower shelf. I can’t do that to another human being. I can’t create something knowing the pain I’ll pass down. I can’t.
I can try. But it won’t do any good. I’ll have to watch all my mistakes go down a line, in order, knowing it’s my fault. I could have prevented it. I can’t. “Oh you could try.” He’ll say. “I’m sure it won’t be that bad.” What are the odds I’ll have a daughter stronger than me? I can’t create something to die. I don’t love me enough to duplicate what I’ve been through. I’ve seen it pass already, grandma, to mom, to me. I can stop it with me. That’s my choice. Not yours.

For the Mother Who Holds

I’m silent. I let you make me silent. I don’t have money. I depend. And I don’t have the strength to be on my own. And you took my words. How I say what it is I feel. I’m not a quiet person. I laughed years ago. I let you do all this. It was me. I’ll hate you for this far longer than I’ll hate you for forgetting I’d grown. You took this. You made me think I gave it. That it shouldn’t have been there in the first place. I shouldn’t ever go against you. I left myself in a box. I thanked you for letting me stay. I can’t ever be here again.

10 Poems in 20 Minutes (Day Seventy-Four)

Tomorrow I will have written ten poems in twenty minutes for seventy-five days in a row. I will celebrate this occasion by writing rhyming poems. They will not be good, but instead, most likely, will be hilariously bad, enjoy my milestone.

I Wrote 10 Poems in 20 Minutes
Day 74

Poem 1:
Quit being short with me, I know you don’t mean to be mean, but you are.
He said, you’re saying I don’t know what I’m talking about.
They were driving.
I theorize.
If you can’t complete simple tasks without argument,
Then one of you is waiting for the other one to die.

Poem 2:
Fussing
She fusses over everything
Does it all in the wrong order
So that everything is made more difficult
Than if she’d just done what she said
She needed to do
Instead of worrying about it.

Poem 3:
She’s always her to me
She’ll ask what you meant by that
Till she finds something you’ve been trying to hide.
She takes care of her curls and pins them, fine.
She’ll call you names for teasing her,
But without the guts of shame.
She’ll call to the man who loves her
He’ll do the same.
She tells you a story
And takes an hour,
But she’ll listen and look bored if you try it back.
She’s worked in a store, stocking shelves and candy
But she still looks like her in the shirt uniform.

Poem 4:
I’d like to have someone to talk to
Who knew what I meant
And I could hold no boundaries
No barriers in the mind
Nothing to not say
Or be careful about
That person I would love to speak to

Poem 5:
I forgot about the static cling of my hair
In the winter that passed the summer
The snap of the coat pulled off a sweater
I missed the cold burn of air in my lungs
The cold all the way through that never comes in summer
And the last of the dead leaves waving brown.
Most of all I forgot the sun can shine cold.

Poem 6:
He woke me up this morning
With the shave and a hair cut tap
He thinks it is his way to knock on a door.
He woke me up for school
With cheer and glee
At spreading the misery of awakeness to another
Watch them struggle
Get to see them vulnerable
While you’re awake,
The only time he’s smarter than us
When he wakes us up.
His power comes from his voice, the voice that will wake
And awaken, I get to bring you into the world.

Poem 7:
Monday I will pack my things
Spend money, fly, ship, move, live
Somewhere else
I can’t stand it here
Half child half me
Mostly a person they no longer know
But who looks like an older version
Of something they always thought they saw.

Poem 8:
I cannot be like my mother
Was a mantra of mine.
After she had made a new rule
That meant we couldn’t play that game
Or we had to be quiet.

Poem 9:
I thought my brother was a bad person,
Well not bad, but not good.
I had surgery, minor, there was a bone spur in a breathing passage.
I stuck sat on the couch for a week.
And he did nothing to help,
No one told him to,
And he didn’t offer.
He had yet to put himself where someone else looked.
I hoped he’d get better later.
My Mom probably thinks the same about me.

Poem 10:
I consider me,
An identity.
I am a woman who.
I won’t be stuck in by descriptions
Don’t make me one thing.
Don’t make me everything.
I think I know what I’d like to be
An ideal that’s somewhere in here
But I won’t do anything practical to get there
I’ll dream about it,
Whine that I’m not,
And wait for a new adjective tomorrow.

My Mom

i wrote this raw in about three minutes flat. i thought you should know.

I’ve had a realization, I have
My mother isn’t a supremely good mother
The problem is that she’s always said she’s a good mother
Implied
But really, one the face of the thing
She never made time for us
And it makes a certain amount of sense
Her mother would say to them
Do you know what I’ve given up for you kids
And my mother determined to never do that
So she hasn’t
Instead she’s been absent
That’s all right
But it’s not good
And she insists that she is good and all she does is good
But really, not really
She wasn’t there
And I can’t tell her that because she’ll feel guilty
And I hate when she feels guilty because it comes out as anger toward the person she’s near
That person would be me
And I don’t want her continual anger over a long period of time
You cannot correct her
You live with her ways or you mutter silently and keep your head

I needed more time
She gave me light and water and food but no presence
And left me alone
I’m no good alone
But now I’m used to alone
So I’m accustomed to being miserable and there’s no way around it
I have to get out of this house.

She will berate you
Then tell you to talk
Then criticize what you say
Then argue with you that what you said was wrong
Then tell you what you should have said instead
Then get mad at you for not speaking
So I try not to talk
And get yelled at for being taciturn
I’m building a nest of venom in my mouth
And I’m worried that what I’m holding back will turn into normality and I won’t be able to speak my mind articulately ever again
She doesn’t notice what people need or remember that she did indeed have three children. You do not make time for me at the end of your day.
I give you time. Freely. I am not an obligation.
To be made to feel as though seeing me is another thing on a checklist is degrading.
It’s saying I don’t want to see you for you
I want to see you because I must.
I have a duty to fulfill and you’re it.
I have to get out of here.

That’s what she wants from you a remission of guilt
Indebted to her
So that you wait for her
And she gets to hold all your strings
And pulls whichever one will get her what she needs at exactly the right moment
If you don’t, well, then, of course that’s fine
Of course