Then and Then

Then and Then

A Poem by My Name is Brenda and I'm a Writer

 

Where were you the first time you looked at me
and saw yourself in my face?
You told me you were living your life over through me.
You told me I would be the death of you
 
I stand beside your bed waiting, waiting
for you to draw your last breath
Knowing I have come home too late.  I am dead to you already.
 
We share consecrated Sundays
fishing in our secret spot near Toppins pier
No one found us there. No one looked.
I baited hooks. You smoked.
 
I force myself to bring my face to your mouth and inhale your breath
I watch you sleep. Your bloated flesh is the color of creek scum
Finally I speak the unsaid words.
I’m home, Mama. I’m sorry.
 
I wanted more from life than croakers and soft shelled crabs
I wasn’t your shadow or your savior
Mama, I ran away from you long before I left
 
What more can I say about Frankie Mae Foreman?
Was I the death of her?
She crawled into that bottle when I ran away and there she stayed
until her dying day

© 2008 My Name is Brenda and I'm a Writer


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Reviews

There is such cleanness in the way you tell this painful story. I like it very much. I respect your self-assurance in the telling...no self-aggrandizing or overwrought language, and yet a specificity that denotes character and place, and an underbelly of emotional entanglement. As the mother of a teenage daughter in the throes of individuation, I feel it right to my toes.

Posted 13 Years Ago


there is something about mothers and daughters that always seems wrong . . . I hope that things will be different with my daughters but somehow I always end up feeling inadequate . . . one day they will write words about me trying to get over what I've done to them.

Posted 13 Years Ago



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Added on July 3, 2008

Author

My Name is Brenda and I'm a Writer
My Name is Brenda and I'm a Writer

Falls Church, VA



About
My first novel was inspired by my own childhood on Pungo Creek in rural North Carolina where I grew up in a house shared by three generations. It seems it took a lifetime to write but it was actually.. more..

Writing