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?
Just a Writer 