Tag Archives: son

Shadows Vanish

shadows

Try as I might, I can’t keep from weeping

I wish upon wish, my traditions keeping

But from my heart, my tears are leaking

Your silence screams at my speaking

Oh, how I wish you’d trusted me more

Instead of looking for ways to score

From my chest, my heart you tore

But those are shadows of vanished lore

I love(d) you with every bit of my being

From our home you stole while fleeing

Every bit of our future fleeting

I wish, I wish that you were seeing

As these holidays warm others homes

 

I watch and miss you, feeling alone

My traditions are now gone to tome

May love find you someday, wherever you roam.

Release

I hope he never knows the pain he’s gifted me.
I pray that his life turns out better than any of my prayers could be.
My fervent wish from my bended knee
Is that his eyes be opened enough for him to recognize and see.
I hope he never understands an abused and neglected heart
I pray that his life is filled with every color of every art.
My fervent wish although we’re apart
Is that his grays fill in with rainbow light and from darkness he depart.

Rippled Reflections

He speaks his own language

one filled with nonsense

and fanciful words like “fisticuffs”

He speaks through snippets

short jokes with punctuation

obvious as a war zone

He speaks in varying voices

that change with the characters

telling the story of his truth

He speaks with the stones

but he doesn’t trust them

Their wisdom lost to self-doubt

He speaks with the voice of Kings

ruling the alleyways wearing

tin-foil crowns that are often trampled

secret messages passed through his paranoia

clipping words like newspaper headlines

He speaks of dreams imposed

impressed, imbibed, truly intimate

flourishing in friendly fanatacism

He speaks in questions queried

in response to what he requests

Directness skitters him on a hot skillet

running like a cockroach from the light

He speaks in the symbols of aliens

collected in straight line rainbows

elaborately and tediously assembled

He speaks through the silence of the unforgiven

lost to the world of good will and hope

to the world of dark despair disguised as survival

the foundations built on lies he tells himself

to secure the warmth of a lost memory

that never existed.

Deepest loss

In my experience there has not been a greater loss felt than that of a child.

In my experience there has not been a greater loss felt than that of a child.

I’ve loved you since before you were born
When I saw your face pressed
Like a violet captured
In an ultrasound I no longer have
But cherish as a vivid revered memory
As in fairy tales of old
Many lies were told
And you were stolen and kept far from your home,
from my active loving heart.
And I wept.

I’ve loved you since the papers crumpled
Unused, only to be recycled,
When the death of hope is heard
In the confetti shaped heart
That is irreparable, devoid of cohesion
Bleeding the tears of mourning
That burn with the lies told
The familial curse stood as firmly as a parapet.
And still I wept.

I’ve loved you since I witnessed your slavery
Removed with greed, falsehoods,
Shifting legends of half-truths expressed
Under the guise of protection
Under the threat of theft called the improper noun
Rebuked with abandonment
Suffered the neglect of compassion
A soul reviled, refused encouragement
Violated in every way possible.
I still wept.

I’ve loved you since before I strapped on my armor
To storm the cotton fields wrought with personal terror
With machete drawn high in the air,
Shackles of truth for the liars to wear
Jangling on my hip with keys nowhere to be found.
The hovel proclaimed as his kingdom rotted
From the inside out with starving zombies
Clawing at the doors and windows trying to escape
I saw your fetal position and spirited you away
And we wept.

I’ve loved you since I became your Harriet Tubman,
Your underground railroad to freedom
I sheltered you in loving arms with my heart repaired
Embracing the Old to reject the new wave
At the same time embracing the New and rejecting the old
Hearing your pain mocked, examining trauma
After trauma after trauma after trauma after trauma
And feeling the rebuke of your fears whipped at me
The refusal of your champion for lack of worth
The loss of faith in hope and healing
And I weep.

I loved who I became because of your life
My superhero cape dancing in the wind
As I advocated for the better world that you deserve
As I championed a life with choices once denied you
As I believed in your potential, indulgent of possibilities
Lifting your chin so your eyes could see success
Found with the wings of encouragement
With every required tool available
At the beckoning of your unwilling fingers,
Your imprisoned mind,
Your blinded foresight,
Your despised, abused, and hated body.
You have removed my necessity, discarded my gifts
Refused your glory for the sake of self-loathing
And I weep, but always I will love you.

These Are My People: Matthew McBee

My son and I line up at the counter
Draining blood from the coffee maker
Refilling our need for bonding
At our morning communion ritual
Not offered by a priest but by Folgers.
We settle at the dining table
Scrolling through my Facebook feed
For videos to spark heat into our spirits
Blaze them up with conversations
That can’t be repeated in public.
I don’t like the days when
It is just me standing in line
Waiting for the “good days”
Where the shame or guilt of bad decisions
Don’t hang like piñatas waiting
Waiting for us to strike the first blow
Raining the inner conflicts into our laps
Tarnished with expectations of perfection
Waiting for us to strike the first blow
Against one another with words
As bitter as the coffee we cream in avoidance
Of the redeeming absolution we could
But don’t usually offer to one another.