Just a Writer

I

I bring her a bouquet of roses

and she looks at me tearfully.

I told myself that I could salvage 

this, though this was the seventh 

time. I shouldn’t have let the kid

watch. I don’t know what punitive

spirit from oblivion possesses

me, making me more animal than 

Nebuchadnezzar during those

seven years. At least he ate grass.

I devour everything and everyone 

leaving just motes of dust 

on the broken floor. 

II

I’m older now, and I think

I’ve repented. I found God

and hopefully didn’t lose Him.

There’s a maelstrom within, 

breaking sense and reason 

and I reach for the pills on the 

table, popping them —

blue, red, white, 

hoping for that false peace. 

No war, no anger, no rage, 

no hate, no madness, I whisper 

while walking in circles around

the table. I’m the splitting image 

of my mother, but I’m my father’s 

son. The rake becomes a torture 

device, the spade a bludgeon, 

the fork a sharp trident,

the spoon, an eye-gouging 

abomination. I fought everything 

and everyone and when the

dust settles on the broken floor,

will I weep or kneel embracing 

a Pyrrhic victory?

III

I love the boy and hate the man. 

Sometimes I think I loved

him a little too much, 

but I did everything to be someone

my mother wasn’t. I tried my best, 

but I often feel like I’m cursed.

Now my joints break, 

a sharp unpleasant warmth 

rushes through my body, which 

no amount of insulin can cure.

How long God? The boy says God

doesn’t care about our brokenness. 

We’ve argued and 

fought, and. though he is 

his father’s son, there’s another side —

a sweet song from unknown depths, 

urging him to be more than 

some soul-crushing Goliath 

with a tongue sharper than a razor

and fists of steel. Is love enough?

When the dust settles on the 

broken floor, will everything 

and everyone mean something?