Your Life Before My Eyes

Another for my Arrin's son, who is not dead, but I mourn for ...

Your Life Before My Eyes

 

I’m unraveling that web you spun

around my heart, looking at those flaws

my eyes consciously shied away from.

The searing lightning of impatience,

roiling tempest of temper on the horizon,

the blood red fists that played with matches. 

It was yesterday, you a neglected nine

trying so hard to be an unaffected

animated character (damn, you would

piss me off), a rude disinterested clown

drowning without anyone to see

you were smart, you were funny, you

wanted your daddy, you wanted

your mommy, your sister; you wanted

to be a kid, to be loved. You hated that

you only had me (damn, I would piss you off -

acting like grades and manners were important,

enacting limits & time-outs & groundings)

You learned; multiplication and division

finally made sense. You learned what to say

and how and when, but not why

and not how to truly mean it. And you

learned how to do what you wanted to do -

crossing from one ocean to another

(but you insisted alone). And I kept your room.

 

And now I’m packing it up, empty boxes

I am taping up and filling with your adulthood.

I have sealed the house against you,

wedged the windows, rebuilt the fence,

hope the police locate you; your brother and I

pray against the day we look up and you are there.

I keep the gun loaded and close – I remember

“I will do what I want when I want”, your hand

on the gearshift, your butt in the back seat –

a telling tale, you wanted me to parrot words.

You told yourself I was not your real mother;

you wanted me to release you.

 

So I do.

 

Ariel

Nov 1, 2012