Twisted

Written as a submission to Dallas Art House in response to this year's Origin theme 'On Darkness.'

I’ll make it mine”, age-old thought in a little boys’ brain,

Child’s plaything, magnifier.

I can feel its smooth leather pouch,

In my pocket,

It channels the sun, what twig and beetle burned,

Now burns in me.

“That girl is fine,” A king whose lust won’t be tamed,

Smokin sweet, trophy wife.

Baby you’re going to get lucky,

On my mattress.

From Adams’ rib both lips and breasts satisfy,

And makes hungry

“I’ll be divine,” A creature who wants just to reign,

Proud cherub, anointed.

Your god only wants you happy,

Comes the whisper.

The Liar promises life in taste and tree,

Whose fruit is death.

“I am the vine,” cure the sick and heal the lame,

Whore lover, law breaker.

Cannibal? You said eat your flesh,

To come alive.

Nail in bone for boasts of God their fury spent,

The cost for me.

Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash

Letters In A Box

 

“What are you hoping to get out of them?” my wife asked. To which I’d reply, “If you’re parents abandoned you, abused you, or sent you to boarding school in Siberia there’s always a ‘Why.’”

I’m reading through some letters in a box. They were with my mom’s things, fifteen years ago when we cleaned out her house. A shoe box I put in storage. Forgot I had them until the unit was unloaded. Letters from my dad to my mom. Letters dad wrote to my mom from before my birth until I was seven, my sister five. A one-way conversation.

There are relationships where one partner’s vibrant character, and purposeful lifestyle pulls the other clod out of catastrophe and into a smooth orbit. Not our story. My parents were arcing toward collision. To avoid it my parents lived separate lives, three-thousand miles apart.

The iconic Civil-war letter goes something like, “I would brave hot musket shot and cannon-ball fire to experience your red-hot loving again.” Those were not my dad’s letters. Writing from New Jersey to my mother in the San Fernando Valley the letters contained four basic sentences, incorporated four themes: the weather, repentance, money, and plea.

Two pages, handwritten; “It is March, and I am still sleeping in my long underwear.” “Sorry I missed you when I called last night. The boys and I went out. They bought a round. I bought a round…” “Did you receive the money from Rochester? They owe me about 140 dollars.” Often, there was a question about bringing us to visit or to live in the east. Neither ever happened.

The explosion came in high school. Legal divorce. My sister and I were not surprised. The letters survived, in a box. In a closet. Devoid of answers.

Photo by Ire Photocreative on Unsplash