Distantly past

Too late, darkness

Alcohol, abuse, violence,

Black clouds,

Rain,

More darkness,

Screaming, silently, alone,

Scared, numb,

Tears and bile in my throat,

Too much night

To hear me shake,

Tense, yet trembling,

Eyes slammed closed,

My s**t, his whisky,

Her fear,

Flaking and dying,

I'm a coward,

Please forgive me, Mother

Reviews

[Eilis]

One odd thing that I remember about being a child is the ways that adults seemed foreign. Like their lives were floating in some other plane and they flitted in and out of reality playing the parts they were attributed but not really having the same kinds of fullness as children. I suppose this has something to do with the things they hold back. The fears they don’t express or the personalities they don’t share because they like to keep a dividing line between the kingdoms of childhood and adulthood.

When I was a kid, I had two recurring dreams for years. One where my mom was a vampire when she was awake, and then a beautiful young woman while sleeping, and in the other, there was this traveling salesman who looked like a character from Mr Roger’s neighborhood who showed up outside my window trying to kidnap me. In the dream, my bedroom was completely full of clothes, like a mountain, and I would bury myself under them, but he would always find me. Nothing I could do to stop him.

All that stuff I just wrote is what came in to my head when I read this. I mean, the dark cloud of fear is the main emotion that grasps me in the poem, but within fear there are many faces and those faces have more eyes and teeth than they ought and keep us frozen as we try to grasp the route of approach. The fear underlines everything here, but there’s also the guilt and powerlessness.

The child is thrown into that mysterious adult world before he is ready, and because he is not ready, he doesn’t know how to face the threat, the fear. And sometimes the threat itself is something that shouldn’t be a threat to begin with, so, there is a compounding.

Once, I watched my stepdad hit my mom with the car. Wasn’t anything I could do, but there is in all of us this sense that we ought to have done something. The memory returns sometimes and I still flinch.

I guess what all this comes back around to is that experience marks us, and not only us but those around us. We don’t always get a chance to make amends for things we feel we could have done differently. And we also don’t always or sometimes ever have the opportunity to understand what our experience means.

But the pain makes us who we are, and sometimes that can be something beautiful for the future. This is a poem that touches something inner. Dark, but looking to let in the light. It makes an impression that will linger long after reading.

[gram linski]

appreciate you kind words of understanding and support , Eilis, aye I think we all wish there was something we could have should have might have

[Shazbatt969]

Thank you for your honesty and pain, getting flashbacks, a well written poignant piece

[gram linski]

I love the fact that you get my poem, but also very sad indeed, if that makes sense