Archive | March 2013

Poison by Linda V

Mar2

I don’t exist

Except in molecules and blood cells

Life saving, not life changing

I don’t exist

To be nailed to the cross you think I will carry

I don’t exist in the memory you have

When we sat together under the sink in the cupboard

Mom snapped the shot with its blinding flash

But all I saw was the glow from the light around you

I worshiped you then

Wanted to be like you and have what you have

Long after you left my Christmas presents unopened out of sight

And now

Now as you lay dying

Even though I don’t exist

I am told to stand up for you

To lay down for you

To save you and to shut up about it

We are blood

But yours is poison

I have the light now

I know that this is one gift you can’t leave unopened

Even though

I don’t exist

Papa by Linda V

Mar2

Up the deep, sloping driveway

To the quiet green cottage on the hill

The chopped firewood in the garage

Where the jack rabbit hides

Calls to my memory

The hands that stacked it there

Years before

The wood shop still covered

In sawdust and shavings

I can feel him here with me

Papa

This house he built

Modest and rustic – is the place of my dreams

The rain barrel leans in earnest

Looking skyward – ever hopeful

As I will when my time is over

I will gaze skyward and be transported

To this place in time

Where the gentle hands and familiar faces

Of my youth

Will greet me

And welcome me back

Mom by Linda V

Mar2

Who is this woman

Who gave me life

Who watched me grow

In the distant memory of my youth

Who is this woman

Who taught me strength

Who taught me courage

In the early stages of my understanding

Who is this woman

Who let me go

Who knew my heart

In a time before I knew myself

Who is this woman

Who now cowers and hides

Who is fearful

In the twilight of her years

Who is this creature

Afraid and distant

She is not the woman

I once knew

 

Hood by Linda V

Mar2

I don’t know your world

I only see its consequence

I step over the broken glass

In the bus shelter of your dissidence

Walk past the spray paint

On the walls of your boredom

Rebellion was less destructive in my youth

But maybe it wasn’t

Part of me is angered

Part of me envious

You will never get back this freedom

And you will learn as years pass

That what you destroy now

You will end up trying to rebuild later

But the damage will remain done

Long after you put the spray can down

First to Last Lessons by Linda V

Mar2

Watching her slip from me

This woman I no longer know

A faded vessel of substance and grace

Whose first lessons bore within me

A resistance to pain

A stoic and relentless desire to be loved

I crave from her the words she won’t say

Words she doesn’t know anymore

Pain eats at her heart but no longer holds me captive

I have made the choice, to not always find the darkness

In its encapsulating draw

It pulls at me, in the darkness of night

Calling me to come and wallow in its discomfort

An ache for the pain of normalcy

The familiarity of anxiety and worry

I fight it

I fight her, not with words or actions but with belief

Not all is lost, hope can abound

Even if she is lost to me – those first lessons hold fast

Against the coming of the night

To Daddy by Linda V

Mar2

His was always the love I craved

But my heart could never touch his

His was always the handed I needed to hold

But he would not reach for me

His were always the eyes I saw myself in

But he would not return my gaze

I gave the world all that I could

And fought to stand on my own two feet

His was always the praise I sought

But he turned a blind eye to my accomplishments

His cold blank stare kept me at a distance

His arms folded decidedly against his chest

His heart turned black at the mention of my name

His love was never meant to be mine

He might have given me life

But he gave up on me long before

I knew what it would mean to lose him

Dad by Linda V

Mar2

He was as he is now

A memory set to life

By the movie in my mind’s eye

I miss him

But hated how he left me

With a child who was barely a woman

And never the parent I needed

I understood long after

That his blood flowed within me

His ideas intertwined with my own

His vision opened my eyes

To the man I needed to be

And my understanding has changed

Grown up with the little boy

He left behind

Cancer by Linda V

Mar2

I am the fear that makes you cower

In the darkness of the night

I am an evil found within you

Don’t care if you’re black or white

The light that lives inside you

Will die by my desire

To reduce the strength within you

To the embers of a fire

You can try and fight against me

With your poison soaked with pain

But even if you push me out

I will return again

I will take all that you love

I have no conscience and no soul

I am an empty sucking nightmare

I am an endless empty hole

Born of the devil’s dream

To take you all the same

I am an evil in your body

And Cancer is my name

Kaleidoscope by Linda V

Mar2

Love through the kaleidoscope

Not as simple as it seems

Romantics just see the colours

Get wrapped up within the dream

Ever changing shapes transfix

The viewer in a glance

The twists and turns of love

Can make you dizzy from the dance

The road of love is rocky

It’s what the kaleidoscope can hide

Blind belief in love is tempting

When two hearts first collide

Many lovers come undone

Give in to their desire

The kaleidoscope of misery

Shows the peril of love’s fire

Ghosts by Linda V

Mar2

His hands are a distant memory

But they linger on her skin

Like a ghost below the surface

Stinging reminder of the sin

His eyes no longer pierce her soul

No longer hold her gaze

All that’s left is the memory

Of some dark forbidden haze

What they had was fleeting

But that moment burned its brand

Feels more like just a rumor now

In some distant foreign land

Still the embers burn within them

Yet there is no going back

They’ve both found that passion with another

As those memories fade to black