Bad instructions.

i go to a poetry thing every two weeks or so, and it feels really good to get things out during them. lately there have been themes, and this week's is bad instructions.

people like telling you what to do.

it's true.

they like to give excellent advice to you,

so excellent that they won't follow it themselves. 

and we like hearing advice!

well, to a point.

no one likes to be left on their own in a world that doesn't make sense

at least, not without some instructions.

so we drink them in.

we're so thirsty for them...

we're so thirsty that we don't even test these directions,

we don't take a moment to look where they're directing us,

we just head off in hopes that once we get where we go

we wont want to keep going.

when i was told my mother had cancer

i was very young.

old enough where i knew it was bad,

but young enough where that was the best negative descriptive word i knew.

i can't remember the advice i was given,

but i remember being given a lot of it.

"let out your feelings, 

let us know what you want."

stuff like that.

these were bad instructions.

i didn't know what i wanted, 

and now i know that most people don't in the first place.

i wanted her to wake me up in the morning when i went to school

to come say good night to me when i went to bed,

and to make the best god damn sheppards pie in the world

every once in a while..

i was eight,

i didn't know you could want for someone to get better,

to beat cancer,

i didn't know you could want that. 

i wanted her there, and she was, cancer could suck it,

i didn't know it could be so violent.

it was just a word in the background.

nothing in life really prepares a family for that,

and equally nothing really prepares a family for what happens next,

when she beats it.

it's as if Gandhi just beat Muhammad Ali in a boxing match,

everyone goes crazy in wild celebration afterwards,

and there are more noises and sounds than one can exclaim,

and it's wonderful

but it settles down

something can only hold the limelight of people's exciting lives for so long.

GANDHI JUST BEAT MOTHER F*****G MUHAMMAD ALI.

there's no time appropriate for settling down,

there's no time appropriate for self conscious composure,

it's time for dancing,

time for singing,

time to forget that everything you do in life 

everything that's meant to keep you or someone else happy

alive

should be put on the back burner in favour of celebration.

because this is what everything you do in life was for,

this is what your savings is for, so SPEND IT.

this is why you were racking up those vacation days, so USE THEM.

but i was still pretty young.

and all i was told was "you should be happy"

happy?

this was a very bad instruction.

i should have been happy i got tucked in at night,

that when i forgot to make my lunch that one would get to me at school,

i should have been happy like having been given a new book.

and i was.

but happy doesn't cut it,

i should have been f*****g ecstatic. 

ecstatic in that it was my mom tucking me in,

that those lunches always had the taste of extra care

i should have been ecstatic like being given the world's library 

and should never have put a book down.

but i was happy.

because someone told me to be.

...god damn directions...

when i was a bit older my father was told he had cancer,

then we were told.

"spend as much time with him as you can"

was something i heard more times than i care to remember.

this may have been pretty good advice

i'm not sure why i didn't listen to it, 

but i'm certain it was because his life was what was cancerous.

to me at least.

so i stayed away from that as much as i could

because i was old enough to realize cancer's not something you want. 

i didn't want it.

he didn't want it.

but hearing "spend as much time with him as you can"

from family and friends

is much different from hearing

"you only have this much time to spend with him"

from his doctor.

that rattled me. 

but it should have picked me up and shook me

like an ice cream hungry 8 year old and their piggy bank,

shaking loose every bone in my body 

and breaking the ties i had to anything else that would take up my time.

his time.

he faded.

physically.

but i had never been more proud of him 

as when he showed how bright and open he had become.

i couldn't spend enough time with him then.

he was more my father then,

weak, frail, sleepless and vulnerable,

because he was being strong,

he was being brave,

and he wasn't scared.

the last time i saw him he couldn't speak

he couldn't open his eyes

but they said he could hear.

i know he could hear me.

but i'll be damned if i remember

the exact words that were my last to him.

i didn't hug him.

i don't know why.

instead i grabbed his hand,

grabbed his hand like i was grabbing for my life.

i was grabbing for a large part of it,

a part that was about to leave forever.

but then he grabbed mine.

it wasn't a hand shake

but we were both holding on so tight that's what it turned into.

there were no words to go with this.

i couldn't speak either.

there was a pathway between rows of roses

right outside his door, that he liked to walk.

this only started near the end.

but it made him happy, even then.

the last piece of advice he gave me

he gave to everyone.

and while he couldn't speak,

during that last handshake i could hear his voice 

from time and time before,

saying "stop and smell the roses."

it seems easy enough to understand but until then it never stood out to me.

then i got it.

Stop. and smell the roses.

and right then, the last time i ever saw him, 

the last time i ever held his hand

a few hours before he would take his last breath with his parents beside him

he did something no one else had done to me

and something no one has done since.

I had

finally

been given a good instruction.

Author's Note

i woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep, remembered i hadn't written anything for this weeks theme and turned this out without much editing at all.
there's really next to no structure in this, and i don't know how i feel about it, but this turned out to not be about the craft of poetry at all.