Unearthing the dirt
Buried in the heart
Planting a seed
With hope and love
Waiting for it to grow
Into
And out of
It all

Really ounce by ounce
Pouring the concrete
To bridge
That needs bridging
To love
That needs loving

I can see how not many people couldn’t get it
I can see how I demand the attention but at what cost?
Uncertainty is a game for the conscious, those who are unconscious are innocent
It’s easy not knowing but then again, I crave
Of imagery, beauty, adoration
The shadow who smiles wickedly, cackles underneath
It was never that what I seek but it’s a must
Is that how we suppose to live? The shadow will do so in order to sustain
The imagery, beauty, and adoration
But at what cost you ask? Nothing
Just shame, pain, and the shadow cackles again wickedly

Mama,

I'm just a little girl.

You make me happier than anything else

With the books that you read me

The smiles you give me

The warmth of your body

As I sit on your lap

My downy blonde head

Rested, listening to the heartbeat

That lulled me to sleep

In your womb.

You tell me,

"Madison,

You are my sunshine."

You're mine, too

So I bring you

Pictures I drew

Purple weeds that I picked from the yard

Smiles

Flashing love, optimism

With my crooked baby teeth.

I love you, Mama

I do.


Mama,

I'm not a little girl.

I like boys

And have opinions

And bleed

Just about every month now.

I roll my eyes

And speak my mind

And disagree.

I want to read those few books

You don't think that I'm ready to read.

I make you cry now

Almost as often as I make you laugh.

I remind you of the sharp, dangerous bits

Of your own adolescence

With all the added danger

Of my Daddy's set ways.

I'm sorry, Mama

I am.

I can only become a woman

In the ways that you teach me.

I love you, Mama

I do.


Mama,

You know I'm your girl.

I might have Daddy's face and sense of humor

But it's you and I

Talking about our respective friends

As we work in the kitchen

You on the main course

Me on dessert.

We laugh

And sing along to Courtney Love's mad howls

No matter how much everyone else winces in response.

Let me tell you a secret, Mama:

I don't want to grow up anymore.

I feel safe here

Always at home

As long as I'm with you.

I love you, Mama

I do.


Mama,

I'm still just a little girl.

It scares me to death

To see you hurt

When there's nothing I can do

To ease your pain.

Part of me wants to do

What you did for me:

Tuck you into bed

With a hug

A kiss

A ginger ale.

"Sleep tight

Night-night

Don't let the bed bugs bite.

Sweet dreams

Love you

See you tomorrow."

I want to **** this ******* cancer

Eradicate it

From you

And every man, woman, and child

Who's ever fallen

Into its hideous grip.

I don't want to ever have to leave your side, Mama,

Wouldn't do it

For anything in this world.

I'm sorry

For any nasty thing

I could have ever said to you.

I'm sorry

If the stresses

Of a single moment

Or years' worth of them

Ever stole a little bit of joy

From you and I.  

I love you, Mama

I always will.


I'll do anything

If it means we can take each other's hands

And kick this thing's ***.

Confessions:

They weren't created

To make us sound cool

Or look pretty.


They were meant

To make us taste the blood

That we never shed.


They aren't always

As simple as perfume-scented love-notes

Slipped nervously into the hands

Of someone you hardly know.


They can be as dire

As the details

That spill from an honest criminal's lips

Proving his guilt

Sickening the jury

Allowing the clarity of a set date

On which the monster will be slain.


They aren't something

We can stand to dissect too much

Once we have them all written down.

All they're going to do

Is tarnish the world's perception of us, anyway.

Why worry about our syntax?


They weren't made

For jokes

Or church

Or truth-or-dare

Or poetry.

Perhaps they were made

Simply for the dark, scarce rooms

That are the minds

Of cowards.


Confessions

Taste of bitterness

Sting like salt in a wound

Have all the power

To tear a person's whole **** world apart

With a gesture as small

As a nod of one's head.


They're the things we wish we could forget

The big mistakes

That make us want to pour ourselves

A large glass of Selective Memory

And settle in for the evening.


And, in order to get them off of her chest

A trembling poet

With the roar of a lion

And the heart of a scaredy-cat

Will wrap them all up in metaphor

Until she barely recognizes them

Then feed them to the dogs

That make up the rest of the world

For dinner.

She was the one for you but she is long gone. I didnt realize I was here to fill her shoes. I almost want to ask her why she left but it isn't my place. I see red flags but I'm not sure if I'll go...because I'm stuck. Kicked from the places I know I became a vigilante with you. I have 8 months

I'm just the baby Mama
She was your love

She kept staring at the full moon
Her friend, confidant, fixation
Regretfully, I learn later, her escape
I kept talking in eerie silence
And keeping company to no effect
She like a bird tethered in a cage
I remember that night
Solemn the scar
Fourteen years hence
We were parked along a beach in Hawaii
Paradise one would think
Man and wife
Gazing in the opposite direction
I learn later our lasting vacation
Somewhere in the distance
Happy palm trees dance to the music of the waves
Whitecaps accentuate the moonshine of the night sea
Statues of tall mountains stand sentry
Separated by a treeline
Rolling hills, bare picket fences
And a defining moment
In the darkness and contrast
In·con·gru·ous
I see a few horses approaching our view, us
No doubt curious
My wife jests, as her eyes, depart the moon
Her reverie, her prayer pause
As the inside of the car shrivels
My heart braces
Her words, one by one
Denouncement at its finest
As she looks back at the horses, then me
"Even the poppies are in love
They're so stable"
She says this over and over
For my effect
Her eyes glassy
Her voice but a whisper
Steel, still
Drawing the horses nearer
Where soon their eyes
And noses peek through the fences of gloom
Big and brown,
Neighing
She begins to tear
Again
Sad and red
Real childlike
Her past begins to flash
Where she says something to the effect
That she once worked the corner of 42nd steet
In San Francisco
A bombshell went off
The horses sank in their seats
Lava spewed from my head
Mount Robertson in ashes
No votive candles could save her
Or us
Her angels on her shoulder
Lost to her rescue
Only albatrosses
Sinking
Sinking, us
Again in reverie
"Even the poppies are in love
They're so stable"
On and on
"I once worked the corner of 42nd Street
In San Francisco"
Her words, again, like ice
Melting
Reverberating in my mind
Where did I go wrong, I thought
Melancholy on the rocks
That night a man
And a moon cried
The sublimity of her message
The pantomime
The mock of steel
The planted seeds
The turning point
I can only gaze at the rolling hills
Now with two horses hoofing it back to safety
The darkness
The lost rebuttal and love
Her full moon
So prophetic
My teary eyes and mind could only wander
Past the happy palm trees
To the pieces of the puzzle
"You don't love me any more"
Deeply, I dug, wanting to find the answers
As her eyes and fingers quickly curled my lips
My insides a mess
She blows out my candle
Takes away the shovel
I knew
She knew
No words needed to be expressed
Only these
"Even the poppies are in love
They're so stable"
Soon it seamed,
Seemed
Stitches of our love ripped apart
That car that was once parked along the beach
Paradise searching
Now more suited for a funeral procession
As we  bereave the aloha attire, hotel, vacation and then the airport
As two ships departed in bereavement
Rudderless, without sails
Our port becoming a pretense
The living room couch soon my refuge
Saturated with my tears
Faithfulness and honor
Her bi-polarity worsening
Sadly
Truly
I didn't know at the time
If only I had known
Had some understanding
The winds at war
Of what was in her harbor
More of the anchors of doom
Holding her down
The barnacles, erosions of her mind
I could have helped
I will always remember that night
Fourteen years hence
Two horses short of being stable
And the battles in my mind
The tears
The waning days and months
Where the seasons and time felt lost
A year later,
A morning dawn
Mourned
I looked into her vacant eyes
The stillness
She was finally at peace
No longer tethered or caged
There was a full moon the night before

Logan Robertson

3/04/2019