i want to smash plates
but i can't do that
i cant betray the image of the
perfect daughter
the perfect sibling
the perfect child
although i am far from perfect
and everybody knows it
even you know it
but i still can't smash plates
maybe it’s the curse
of the eldest daughter
or maybe
there is something
intrinsically wrong with me
because i don't remember
when this started
or if there was ever a starting point
i don’t remember what shattered me so badly
that i wanted to shatter the world with it

Six children and a suburban home
Don't it hurt you to see me like this?
One of yours, and still so alone?

First daughter assigned third wife
I've done it all wrong again,
Haven't I?

Sprawled all across this spiky green turf
Drinking up the merciless sunshine
Trying to keep it down

Weeping about my friend's father
Watching for a hint of remorse in your stern frown
I wait for you to ask for my forgiveness
Go on, ask
Let me for once be the one to deny

Lost childhood
a shattered snow globe on the floor
enchanting glitter and broken glass,
swirling in a mass, I find no cure.
Swept up the shards
that faintly jingled while being discarded
cut myself cleaning the mess
and it scarred
a surface of me that must stay hardened.

So independent
I can live on my own
don't know what's best
but it's better unknown.
I am shaped the way you had me sculpted
I've got a sharpness deep inside
here's the woman that has resulted
from a young girl's need to hide.

Mom
I brought a portrait photo of you
with me to art class
the teacher said
I looked just the same
everyone always told me I was like my dad
I was so happy to be beautiful, that day.

and I know you've said you don't understand poetry
so I'll say it easy
I love you so much
I hope you don't hate me
for what I used to be.
Forgive the broken snow globes
I have already forgiven the memories.

(Is there an emotion for mystical? I suppose it would be to be mystified. Perhaps awe is the word I am looking for.  I was in awe at the sight of him! I was beyond mystified!)

It started in the Yellow Wastelands.  Where life went to die.  As life dies there, they become a part of the Yellow Wasteland adding to his spread and growth becoming a sort of crystalline lattice.  All go willingly to the crystalline whisper. The whisper in recent theory emanates from the shining yellow crystals that grow among the Yellow Wasteland like blue bonnets in the Texas spring.  Once the Whisper is heard the victim willingly partakes in what we call The March. The March is a mindless saunter to The Yellow Wasteland where upon arrival they lay in the yellow dirt and slowly begin crystalizing. We have tried stopping The March. But have been unsuccessful for many years.  During the state of the march the victim gains a strange, extraordinary ability to control others as they see fit. If one or a group of people, try and prevent the march they will be controlled by the whisper to put the victim back on track.  The final equation that we cannot solve is why one hears the whisper.  There seems to be no pattern whatsoever.

On this day my daughter heard the whisper. We walked with her for hours on end.  My wife and son followed shortly behind whilst I walked beside her talking about memories and music.  My son then caught up and started to play his lute. He played song after song and sang beautiful lyrics that they wrote together.  My wife would then catch up to fix our daughters hair and clean her face as we walked and walked toward The Yellow Wasteland.  There were times where we would walk all together in a line and pray and pray.  

Over the Wolf's crossing trail was a hill. The hill was now called.
" The Last Ascend."    The Yellow Wasteland can be seen below.  We started the ascend up the last ascend.  Tears flooded all our eyes as we were powerless to stop The March.

Do you accept your family?
Despite the things they say to hurt you?
Do you turn the other cheek
Each time they blame and scold you?

Are you okay with no boundaries?
Never hearing a genuine "I'm sorry."
Do you just shrug things off cause,
"Hey, they're your family"

Or do you not accept that?
I've felt so conflicted lately
Because of family with no boundaries
Family that don't accept me, but want acceptance from me.

They always told me to say sorry as a child,
If I hurt someone else, I was wile.
Even as an adult, I'm always wrong
About others, the world and my own mental health.

I have to apologize in the end.
I have to pick up the phone to check in.
I have to put on an ever changing mask to ensure I won't be hurt again-
I try to explain it and once again, I'm a child.

I say "I" too much
I should ignore everything that offends me,
Assume the best of family because they're family.
I'm family but have to change and ignore my feelings for them to accept me.

Nicky, the neighbor’s dog, drags a road **** home.
A beautiful pelt like those fox shoulder garments women wore in the
      forties.
But the head is crushed beyond recognition—maybe it’s a fox and that’s
      why Nicky, a canine, is conducting this wake on our front lawn.

Loretta, my wife’s mother, is in the hospital again. Forty years of Crohn’s
      disease has finally broken her.
It may take some time but she won’t bounce back from this episode.
None of us are sorry to see her die, not even Loretta. There will be a
      thunderous downpour during her last hour.

I like the story about the nuns hitting Peg in school–contumacy is a sin.
Emile and Loretta considered it an inappropriate punishment for their
      cherished adopted daughter.
So they pulled her out of Catholic for public school. They did their own
      thinking about discipline.

Early Spring, peepers all night, then the birds take over at dawn.
      Soothing—the mourning doves.
During this half of the year, May through October, we live in a green
      bower.
We turn the house inside out, move into the mountains.

In their annual order, flowers appear in the understory: coltsfoot, hepatica
      and trillium through to the end, late purple aster, spotted joe pye and
      pearly everlasting.
We let Nicky nurse her road ****, watch over it, roll around on it.
Don’t let go of the steering wheel while driving fast in the passing lane.

i have skimmed every encyclopedia,
have gone through to limits of every book in biology,
and even went on to read depths of psychology,
but i have yet to find an answer
as to why a father could hurt his own daughter

The inheritance of loss
Often told as a tragic story
I sit here writing
while gripping onto the edges of every passing day
hoping to change the narrative of this pain
I'm sorry to my daughter;
there were too many things I never solved
I walked with this heaviness
with a dream to transform the world for you
but instead, I lost and lost
and left these wounds on your carpet
watered a grass that was already dead
and called it advocacy
The inheritance of loss
is beaded into these gold bangles
the same ones my mother gave me
the same ones I keep for you