family issues

“family issues”

Settle down now

Squirming worm

This should only take another minute

My fingers are all greasy

Burgundy and smelling like rust

You keep twisting away from me

Eyes rolling back in your head

                Then back to me

Then peering around the room

                As if you’d find salvation on the cold, grey walls

What’s that you say?

I can’t make out the words

                If you’re going to sputter and gurgle like that

One snot bubble keeps forming in your right nostril

Expanding

                Then snapping shut again

Hold still; let me get it for you

It’s the same for me as it is for you

                You know

I’m so built up – sore and swollen

Until I hear that final gasp

Until your eyes go dark

Then I feel that tingle

Then that rush

Then I go all wet

And sometimes it’s worse

I can’t let go until I hear the snap of bone

                And sinew

The crunch of tendons and tissue

Feel your gut go flat

                As last night’s salad and garlic bread come pouring out

Your index finger is still twitching

I put my cheek against it

                And feel it tickle

I open your mouth

                And blow into it

But you don’t spring back and return the breath

A drop of my sweat falls onto your face

And drifts down like a tear streaming from your eye

I think that you were too afraid

                Too desperate before, to cry

So this looks nice

That little thread of desperation still hanging there between us

Me, the wicked witch

The big, bad wolf

The villain

And you, the sweet

The lost, the innocent

The screaming girl in the nightgown – tripping in the woods

                In the middle of the night

I’ll be in Salt Lake by the time they find you

It’s Spring time, you know

I’ll be at the outdoor market when you’re ready

Selling leather bracelets

                And waiting for you

Then you’ll show up – like you always do

And we’ll talk and I’ll look closely to see if your eyes smile

                When I crack the jokes I know that you love

We can catch up on recent times

Discuss our family issues

Then I’ll find my remedy with you

Clenching my teeth and straining

                Until the veins pop out and I’m up to my wrists in red blood, and yellow fat, and brown vomit

It’ll take me back to nineteen seventy nine

Sixth grade

An April day

When you and the other girls hid behind the thicket in the woods

While one of them pretended to want me naked

I remember my pants flapping in the wind behind you

                As you all ran to the park to tell the other boys what you had done

My own sister

At my own expense – and that was just the beginning

Why you loved to torture me, I’ll never know

I never told mom and dad what you had done

They had too many issues of their own

So now we can take some time to work this out

In a van -in a cold, grey room

in the mountains

on the lake shore

in your place or mine…

where ever we end up

where ever you decide to stay