Serious Poetry

There were seven of us in my family:

Three big-brothers, one big-sister

A big father, a big mother

And me

They all died

And here is my cry…

Ours was a home of the party-line

Lesser-laws could be said out loud

That was fine,

But the Martial-law

Was a stoney, silent line

You did not cross.

DON’T TELL

DON’T SHARE

DON’T MAKE OBVIOUS

DON’T THINK ABOUT IT…

Charismatic daddy creeping around to our rooms at night

Hypnotized and hypnotizing

Mommy loving her notion of us yet the mere hint of criticizing,

 Of revealing the fact there was no true-love in her heart

 And she’d turn on you like a poison dart.

We law-abiding children-citizens of the kingdom

Were Suffocated, saturated, and deeply sad

Self-hatred seeped and steeped into our souls

“YOU are the bad ones…” we were told

And drinking excessively dulled the pain

Freebasing cocaine created another type of insane

The rush of petty (and not so petty crimes)

distracted…a lot

Rush, rush, rushing around to keep what you got

Except that

Real truth pounded,

and pushed, and pummeled

The backs of our teeth

Bleeding tongues

Bitten over and over

gagging back the grief

But When I was still my small little-self

I found some paper and a pencil on a forgotten shelf

And I wrote that

I didn’t feel good

I wrote that something was wrong

I wrote and wrote and wrote

every thought-song that my little brain-washed brain could squeeze out

I said it!

I knew it!

I expressed it!

AND

I am alive because of it!

What is being said?

…by the birds

by another person

by the wind whipping under clouds crashing together making thunder,

Or a simple lack of noise

Breathing

a quiet tick, tick, tick

I had (well ok, still have) a lot to say

To share

To explain

To extrapolate and translate

But the words are slowly slowing down

the pauses are growing

Time for my ears do their work

Time for synapses to swirl and sift

Time for messages to be received

Time for just…nothing

Or something unexpected

I don’t have to DO

I don’t have to KNOW

I don’t have to FILL-UP

To be serious or delirious

Listening is mysterious

And I couldn’t live without it now

Where were you when I needed you so bad?

All I had

Was, “well…ok” or “maaaybe”,

Which really meant: “do what you want baby”

 So you came over after midnight

and tied me up

And after you finished shooting off…

Asked me to whip-up

a gourmet stroganoff

Silence and compliance was the best I swing

Two letters, one sound would have changed everything!

Nnnn… (beginning of sound) Oooo…(end of sound)

NO! – Get your rough face out of mine 

NO! – Take your needs far away from me

No! – I’m juggling too much already

No! – I don’t like that – NO!

No! – I don’t want that – NO!

For me, you didn’t exist

I’d heard others insist

You had to be out there

I just didn’t know where

To find you

It turned out your residence wasn’t in a place

You were growing slowly in my heart-space.

The cry of a dry fear inside me

encased me, numbed, and erased me

Yet when I watered it with tears of pain

when I fed my soul with truth-rain

When I became valuable to me…

 Was when I found you!

Before when life was a mess

I didn’t allow in the simpleness of YES

A breathe-in of ease

A song of calm

Permission for mission-me

The answer my worried self has always dreamed of…

Am I safe? –  YES

Is it ok? – YES

Will it last? – YES

Do I need too? – YES

Can I meet it myself? – YES

Is it true? – YES

Is it real? – YES

Is it mine? – YES

Do I have the right? – YES

You seemed so elusive

Others got you

Others had the privilege

Others could relax

Good grief!

Finally, in desperate, dire, so much needed relief

 I knew that I deserved you

and that’s when you were found

I don’t hate you anymore

Now that I don’t need you

I don’t want to hit you in the head

Or slap your face

Or shake sense into your brain

Now that I don’t need you

I don’t want to report you,

Punish you and cut you

Now that I don’t need you

I don’t really care about your suffering

I know you suffered and caused suffering

But what does it matter?

Now that I don’t need you

That elusive love will never come…

Not from you, not from others

Love for me, comes

from me now

And that’s why I don’t need you anymore.