"madeline" poems - Hello Poetry

for you, we bundle into the car, the littlest (half my brother and twice my nuisance) and the middlest (14 going on favorite) the bitterest (only girl and pen-in-hand) and the biggestest (20 years of bombastic nonsense) 30 minutes and four cornfields later he'll start. "i have to *** "there's a bottle up there, dad." "dad, i have to *** "dad." "dad." "dad." and he's going to *** in that ******* bottle which will inevitably stay in the car for the remaining 8 and a half hours, sloshing and yellow too dangerously close to the color of something you would actually drink. the two youngest will get into some sort of argument some sort of argument that i will intervene in. "shut up!" he'll say. "chill out!" i'll shout. "you chill out!" and my father and my stepmother will eye from the front seat until one of them turns around ("relax, madeline!" sharply). and then the oldest like clockwork will act like he knows more than he does about something (my father will just chuckle, but i'll begin, "bullsh-" i'll begin, but my stepmother will hiss, "madeline!" as if i've killed somebody even though the 8-year-old curses even worse than i do). he'll make a face at me and i'll make a face at him. the littlest will inevitably stomp on my seatbelt about 30 times a second which i will not be able to stand, and we'll get into an argument which will turn into me versus the whole car (afterwards, much stewing, and resentfully cranking my ipod up as loud as it will go). 9 hours and 12 thousand cliff-faces later we'll get there. we'll make it. we'll only be a little worse for the wear. we will be swept up by our twelve billion aunts our nine billion uncles and our three billion cousins, like we always are. someday something will be missing. first it was your back, and the postponement, and eventual cancellation of our trip. then it was your surgeries (why weren't they working?) and then it was a series of words i don't understand stage inoperable 3 cancerous mass lung malignant radiation therapy chemo you may crumple in on that blackness inside you, that's eating you alive one lung at a time, pushing, on your back, until you can't even stand. the fabric of our family is plucked by this disease. this is my poem, my plea for you and for us, that you not pull into the blackness, and that you fight the tumors and the tests and that you win.

0

Jul 31, 2012

Jul 31, 2012 at 10:42 AM UTC

maddie-3

the fabric of our family

for you, we bundle into the car, the littlest (half my brother and twice my nuisance) and the middlest (14 going on favorite) the bitterest (only girl and pen-in-hand) and the biggestest (20 years of bombastic nonsense) 30 minutes and four cornfields later he'll start. "i have to *** "there's a bottle up there, dad." "dad, i have to *** "dad." "dad." "dad." and he's going to *** in that ******* bottle which will inevitably stay in the car for the remaining 8 and a half hours, sloshing and yellow too dangerously close to the color of something you would actually drink. the two youngest will get into some sort of argument some sort of argument that i will intervene in. "shut up!" he'll say. "chill out!" i'll shout. "you chill out!" and my father and my stepmother will eye from the front seat until one of them turns around ("relax, madeline!" sharply). and then the oldest like clockwork will act like he knows more than he does about something (my father will just chuckle, but i'll begin, "bullsh-" i'll begin, but my stepmother will hiss, "madeline!" as if i've killed somebody even though the 8-year-old curses even worse than i do). he'll make a face at me and i'll make a face at him. the littlest will inevitably stomp on my seatbelt about 30 times a second which i will not be able to stand, and we'll get into an argument which will turn into me versus the whole car (afterwards, much stewing, and resentfully cranking my ipod up as loud as it will go). 9 hours and 12 thousand cliff-faces later we'll get there. we'll make it. we'll only be a little worse for the wear. we will be swept up by our twelve billion aunts our nine billion uncles and our three billion cousins, like we always are. someday something will be missing. first it was your back, and the postponement, and eventual cancellation of our trip. then it was your surgeries (why weren't they working?) and then it was a series of words i don't understand stage inoperable 3 cancerous mass lung malignant radiation therapy chemo you may crumple in on that blackness inside you, that's eating you alive one lung at a time, pushing, on your back, until you can't even stand. the fabric of our family is plucked by this disease. this is my poem, my plea for you and for us, that you not pull into the blackness, and that you fight the tumors and the tests and that you win.