Tangentially Related To Beth - 30/07/22

I’m back in town.
She’s not around -
clawed her way out.
My 3rd or 4th time on this merry-go-round;
tourist-trodden, prime for retirement,
no prospects, no purpose,
trauma-bound town.
Coming back is coming home
in the way that returning to a place you’ve outgrown
feels oppressively familiar -
it weeps in / out of your bones
through shortcuts you’ve known,
but don’t take.
You don’t fit
anymore.

Actually …

Perhaps your puzzle piece never slotted perfectly.
Always an affected child -
because I was touched ?
Or because I was struck ?
Because my brain behaved unusually ?
Because I was a changeling,
to word it more medievally.
To be at the site of so much pain;
to see it mapped down every road,
shading each acquainted face;
is arresting.
I won’t be forced inside again,
hiding myself (and my son) from all life again.

I escaped for a world that’s bright and kind
and receptive to a self, rediscovered
after so many self-betrayals
that I can’t prise apart which parts are real
and which were to protect me from you.
You weren’t the devil.
You’re just a man
like so many men before you who’ve taken evil by its hand
and believed themselves victims !
What a sick, salacious lie.
So trapped I was that I spent every waking moment dreaming
one of us would die,
yet still convinced -
so this is love.
This is family.
This is what’s meant for me -
to tiptoe through temper
and make sure I cry quietly.

My body bore a weight I couldn’t carry;
through spasm, kept me screaming
a scream that would foreshadow his entry-cry
into the bright, kind kind of life secured
just for him.
My hands could raise no higher than my hips;
I barely could walk independently;
but still screaming, I heaved him,
still screaming, to my breast,
to stem the love and milk leaking.
For when he’s in my arms I am light and strong -
I’ll walk us through life and hell,
my body,
my son.

My baby,
my saviour.

Thank G-d I’m a mother.

Thank G-d I’m a mother.