"skeech" poems
Mother tried to be a decent mother
in the weeks ahead of Christmas.
she’d fill the month with Advent calendars,
finger countdowns and splotchy
un-successful attempts to create a
joyful face with lipstick.
In hindsight maybe the weight
of her guilt was especially heavy during
the one month of the year that God
could not be ignored.
Its different now.
God is no longer privy to X-mas,
and guilt is not an appropriate emotion
to be taught to children.
I was more afraid
of mother during Christmas
than at any other time of the year,
all that fake smiling and brittle kindness,
her strings could snap at any moment,
and you knew they would
you just didn’t know when,
or how, or on who.
“It always snows at Christmas!”
mother said as she reached
out my bedroom window to
gather a handful of fresh powder.
She’d bring it in to show me
and I’d wince and cringe because
her movements were erratic
and unpredictable
like a puppet on strings, her
arms swinging wildly
from side to side,
knees jerking up and down
across the floor
she’d always end up
spilling snow on my bed.
I think the snow helped numb
what it was that she hid,
helped her hide behind
that painted wooden smile,
if only for a little while.
My memories of snow
are quite vivid.
I’d shovel snow into
tall piles, taller than I stood
then build tunnels
to the other side.
I jumped off of rooftops
into huge snowdrifts
and come up with
sleeves full of snow.
My friends and I would
latch onto bumpers of
slow moving cars
and “skeech” through
the neighborhood,
or careen down toboggan
runs on our feet,
face planting
at the bottom where
the ice gave way
to fresh snow.
When I turned 16
we’d hide Old Style Beer
in snow drifts,
build ice forts in the forest
and spin donuts in
St. Mary’s parking lot with
open beers in our laps
and never get caught.
As I see it now
all of these things
helped ease the
burden of confusion
with my mother’s
dis- interested
wooden puppet
smiling,
but her guilt ridden
attempts at
Christmas niceties
were never going
to be enough
to keep me from
becoming
dysfunctional.
You see its all about the snow.
A life embraced by snow.
snow cut into lines,
Encapsulated snow,
spoon melted snow,
any kind of snow
to numb the extremities
and freeze the nerve endings,
a temporary escape from
the Christmas gift
of mother’s guilt.
Dec 22, 2015
Dec 22, 2015 at 8:52 AM UTC
I am a bird trapped in a cage a red hot cage
And I try to break free but the feathers on my wings become scorched so I screech out in pain
then no one can bother to hear me
and I fall back to the floor of this cage and my feet are then set ablaze by the pain
and so I flapp back up to ceiling of my cage to relieve the pain in feet
only for my wings to unable to fully open and I fall back down unable to breathe
parts of my body are burning all around me
me
And so I skeech to the sky Into the blanket of cotton plastered to blue
I know I belong there
yet still I am burning
and burning
and I try and I try
to reach the sky to feel the cold wind
on my burning unhealing body
and I just can’t seem to get it out of my head that everything will be alright
And so I cry out but no can bother to hear me
And I hate them
because they can’t be bothered to help me
yet I love them because I need them
I
need
them
and I just wish to be free to feel the cold breeze on my burning unhealing body
yet I can’t break out of the cage so at night I take turns on each side of my body so one side heals while the other burns
only for the sun to rise in the morning
and I am still left morning
because I hate my life and hate those who can free me
yet loving them because only they have the key to the door of my cage
and so I’m left loving my life because I can only seem to imagine my future where am freed from this cage
this cage
I am tired of only knowing this cage
and I am just now starting to realize that for me hate in love are one in the same
because it is what I hate that I love
I love them
because I need them
and hate them because I need them
I need them
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 10:47 PM UTC