Things are going as planned.  
My mother died.  
My father died.  
I am alive
and bound to fate

I recite the mantra to myself:  
"A father is fate,"  
drawing the Harrow  
along my fetid soul,  
turning over what was planted in me,  
digging up the weight of his will.

But a counterchant arises,
the one I will use
as the border wall
against this seeding:
“A mother is the memory of mystery."
Her voice plants itself in the silence,  
a reseeding against the pull of his fate,
a defiance growing in the spaces he left behind.

Perhaps that is why my parents died the proper way,  
never knowing how the mystery  
of their three childless children’s lives  
would resolve itself.  
Perhaps they believed  
things left unresolved,  
questions left unanswered,  
were never meant to be—  
that silence itself was an inheritance.  

We were all improper boys in their eyes,
following their path—
but only far enough to leave the family herd behind.
I was the easy one,
the silent, observant child,  
the one who did not rebel,  
but carried no mystery or fate in him,
only the moral weight of a conflicting inheritance.

My father died in peace,
leaving no holes in his life,
not even a burial, just his ashes.
And his boys with all
the usual unresolved regrets,
the proper amount of moral pain
to grieve him properly.

My mother’s death was the pit
in the universe that opened up
a thirty year hell in her sons. She left a mess-
sickly, poor, and with nothing to grant
but her good memories and a moral clarity
torn to tatters by the unscrupulous.

The older took to drugs trying to give her justice.
The younger was too innocent of mind
to truly know and care.  And as far as myself,
the silent observant, middle one—

there are reasons
good mothers die
and poems are meant
to live forever—

there are reasons.

No one sees the useless old thing,
Perhaps a trophy from an old hunting trip,
Or a once prized possession of a collector.
Anything you can think of may fit,
But we all know what it was:
A plain old barn owl collecting dust
Upon the shelf of some antique store.
Killed and stuffed as decoration,
Passed around by its previous owners,
Re-gifted endlessly due to its unsettling gaze.
No one cared as its body ceased moving,
And its wonderful feathers became drenched
In its blood and the dew upon the grass.
Forever the bird will be posed upon its stand.
A whisper of its former freedom and glory.
No one will see how it should've been,
Only what it is now:
In the corner of the antique store collecting dust.

Still mask, that´s what´s left- a face,
A canvas for words I´ve never said.
Your fingers tracing the lace,
The only  thing I ever dread.

You place the letters by my side,
Silent tear rolling down your cheek,
Words tangled in webs, trying to hide,
Knowing that I´ll never speak.

You lay white lilies by ice-cold hands,
Just enough to cover the letters as it lands.

“I thought I could outrun the grief of losing you,
trying to bury my sadness, my pain,
using anything, everything, to make me forget,
to numb the ache, to pretend for just a moment
that you weren’t gone.

But no matter what I do, it still finds me—
in the quiet, in the dark, in the empty spaces you left behind.

I see you everywhere.
In the faces of strangers, in the echoes of old conversations.
I think about you all the time,
wondering if you’d still be here if I had done something—anything—differently.
I blamed myself for your absence.

Who am I supposed to work hard for now?
Who is left to be proud of me?
You were the only one who ever truly cared.

I tried to run from the grief,
but grief is cruel—it hides, it waits,
it strikes when I least expect it,
dragging me back into the loss, the emptiness, the silence.

I tried to escape, but I failed.
I always fail.”

I don't live in a state of mourning
I visit a few days a year
I really just have to feel
What I continue to push down

Sometimes I plan the visit
Save up my tears to spill
At the right time
Pack up the sadness
Let it sit in the corner
Waiting

Sometimes I drive there
In the middle of the night
The suitcase too heavy
The sky falling with the weight
Of my tears

I don't call ahead
I don't plan on going
The car drives itself
Start to recognize where I'm heading
Push on the brakes
They won't budge
Forward momentum
No way to stop

"It's not the right time"
Scream and protest
Don't get out of the car
But now the rains a hurricane

I didn't have time to pack the despair
It just pours out
Raging winds rattle the windows
It's coming in if I don't go out
I let the suitcase get too full

This place doesn't
care about my schedule  
Responsibilities pushed aside
By the impromptu visit

I open the door and realize
The sky is blue
The storm is only on the inside
I have to accept that I'm here

It's a good familiar place
I've already picked the rug
Hung the tapestries
Now I just sit
Open the suitcase
Soak it in
Let myself feel
Until it's over
Get back in the car

I don't live in a state of mourning
Don't let it consume me
I visit a few days a year
And I'll be back

‘repressed rage’
she said
as I clung to the whitest porcelain
‘it’ll do that to ya’
leaning against the doorframe
and I swear I could tell you how many flecks of dirt were in the grout
For how many times
I’d worn in a spot from kneeling
‘it’ll figure itself out’
but I couldn’t hear
cause it just kept coming

I fill the pages to cover up the guilt I feel,
I question to make me feel better,
I complain to weight my sorrow,
Do I deserve all of this?
The old broken poems regretted the hands that never held,
I live to save the name that gave me.

To bargain the loneliness ,
I sing a song of depression.
To perfect the insanity,
I labelled the smiles of grief.
But no matter, I still wrong the innocent….