In my grandparent’s house
There are stacks of
National Geographic magazines.
Next to the couch,
In the bathroom,
So that
From the porcelain throne,
You can travel the wide world,
Stepping into the shoes
Of some great explorer
In the time it takes you
To ****.

I am dying in this house.
I am stifled by this hate.
Not mine,
I don't want it.
Please Dad,
don't put it on me.
I want to love,
I want to be open
to feeling,
to learning,
to growing.
I don't want this racism,
I don't want this prejudice.
Please Dad,
don't put it on me.
Teach me love
not hate.
Love the poor,
the black,
the Muslim,
the gay.
Love everyone,
isn't that what I'm supposed to be learning?
But it's not what you're teaching.
I grew up in hate,
your little girl
and that's all you taught her.
But I have strength in me
because I love anyways.
I love you,
with your racism,
your prejudice,
your blind, uneducated hate.
Even though the hate
makes my heart want to harden,
I love you.
But please Dad,
your hate will blind you,
maim you,
**** you.
Put it away, throw it out.
And if you have to keep it
please Dad,
don't put it on me.

Memories come fluttering back like ghosts,
long after they ought to have been forgotten.
They fall like dominoes, holding hands,
set off by the gentle slush of (mostly melted) ice in a big gulp cup.

The words of the argument have faded,
like argued words are wont to do.
All that's left is a face, shout-filled, anger-contorted,
and a cup (Sonic, extra-extra ice, watered down and barely fizzing)
hitting the wall beside me, sticky sweet in my hair.
The memory of whirling, a picked up chair,
and my body throwing itself against the door, into the sun,
before a picked up chair could join the cup in the category of Thrown Things.

Like dominoes, one memory follows another,
with a million in-between.
A night-filled, shout-filled car,
a cup (moderate ice, ****** straw) sitting in the middle.
A freshly parked car, a shouting boyfriend (anger-contorted),
a door, opened (at last) with the weight of my small body
throwing itself into the night.
The cup, thrown from the window, smashed against the street's asphalt.
The air (more night-filled, less shout-filled) carrying my body
to the warm light of the front door,
the rattle of a (used/abused) cup echoing on the street.

Two memories, with a million in-between, follow each other like dominoes,
long after they ought to have been forgotten.
Color, sensation, emotion, all blurred,
two different colored strings (light-colored, night-colored) tangled together.
Ghosts haunting me with the sound of (mostly melted) ice in a Big Gulp cup.

Civilizations come and go,
and what is an empire
will one day be ruins.
Our moments are fleeting,
and will one day be forgotten.
What we fought for,
bled for, died for,
will one day lose all meaning

Future societies and new civilizations
will one day laugh at our absurd efforts.
They will ask,
where it all led?
From dust,
back to dust.
Is this pessimism?
Or is it truth?

Is it objective thinking,
refusing to believe that
we are anything substantial?
America, England, China,
one day will fall and be counted among the ranks of
Babylon, Petra, Atlantis.
So far lost, mating with myth,
losing all truth.

One day they will laugh at our irrelevancy.
For civilizations come and go,
and what is an empire
will one day be ruins.

Once,
When I was just a child,
pondering life in that simple and profound manner
in which children so often do,
I turned to my mother and told her
that all our lives
it was as if we were digging our own graves,
each shovel full of dirt
a memory,
experienced and then put aside
until the hole was made
and we could lay down,
covered in the memories we left behind.
What a depressing thought!
my mother cried
and I was confused.
In my child mind
I could not understand
why it should be so sad.
Because after all those shovels and memories
surely it would be good
to rest.

Someday,
we're going to find it.
We're going to look up and realize
that we've finally found happiness.
No more razors by the sink.
No more beer bottles littering the counter.

Someday,
It'll all work out.
We'll find what we're looking for
and all our previous pain will be forgotten.

Someday,
we'll turn our backs on the shadows
that plague our present minds.
You'll write a new song
and I'll write a new poem
and everything will get better.

Someday,
we'll find what we're looking for
and we'll smile knowing it's all behind us
making us that much stronger.

I imagine you in heaven,
Eternally young and happy and beautiful.
I wonder if someday
Your soul will be returned to me
Like he told me it would.
In my darker thoughts,
I wonder if you had a soul,
If conceived upon conception is really true.
Because why would God send to Earth
For such a short amount of time
Such a precious thing?
I wish I could have seen you,
Held you.
But I imagine you in heaven
And I wonder if someday
I will know you.
Eden.