Poetry In Motion...
October, 1997
It took hours
to unravel from
your body
and turn my back
to you…
I could feel the circuits
breaking
the slow release
of pain…
My eyes
were transparent
and you know
when I shook that night
it was just
the tears falling
too hard
on the ground
like broken pieces
of a puzzle and
the discontentment
and fear was too loud
to quiet
when the lights
went out…
I didn’t mean
to fill you with
my childhood dreams
but the fear
of you leaving
carries its own
justification.
No, I didn’t mean
to stay this long.
You felt it as much as I did.
We stared straight through each other
as if somehow the reflection of each other
would monopolize our fear enough
to destroy the warm, wet longing, festering
like a ready volcano.
Butterfly kiss – we called it.
That "accidental" touching
that made our skin ignite
like fireworks blazing toward the sky
the ashes cascading back down
setting our bodies aglow.
We must have looked silly,
like fireflies knocking against the glass,
trying to escape.
We giggled like children
denying the stolen cookie.
The giggles cooled the flame
long enough for you to turn
and say, "sorry."
And I nodded and blushed, "Me, too."
We weren’t sorry, at all
But it was our sacrament
to being righteous…
You saw
fireworks
as ice creams
And stars
as trees
just as you see
life more beautiful
because
you’re three…
And I love
your eyes
and the way life
is simple to you
and just plain beautiful
And now fireworks
will always
look like
ice creams
to me…
I remember dusting off Mickey Mouse
Hanging up his tiny shirts
fluffing his pillow
for the sweet dreams to follow
I would smile
just looking at his little treasures
strewn about the room
so many winters ago....
And now today
I put the lid back
on the dark little box
and wish for the days
of Mickey.
What did I expect to find
at seventeen?
Tinkertoys?
Poems from mom tucked away
I close the closet door
the little dark box
tucked away
and I wipe away a tear
Sunlight saturates my face
as I shut his door behind me
slowing returning upstairs
This is not an ending
I tell myself
but a brand new season
of our lives.
Daddy you left as I was being born.
You never stayed to see these eyes
that watched a thousand faces
in search of yours…
Daddy you left as tiny feet began to walk
to outstretched arms I thought
belonged to you…Daddy you left
before I could ask where you were going.
And when I could momma would just say
it’s life that sometimes daddies just don’t stay.
When I was nine I wrote stories about you
a recreation, you see.
I lived with you in my lines and
my poems wrote a faith in you
I prayed you’d be there to see-
But daddy you weren’t.
You never stayed to wipe away
a single tear,
or grab my hand when I was scared.
You went away and didn’t see
when I brought home all A’s.
You didn’t form a single part of me,
yet, I wondered, often
if I love flowers because you do,
or if it’s you that makes me cry over babies laughing
or old men dying of broken hearts.
Daddy you don’t deserve an ounce of love
(and I’m not saying I have any for you)
but just once
I wish
I could hold you
or see your face in mine.
I wish just once
I could feel the parts of me
you took with you
cause Daddy you left as I was being born…
I searched for those whose eyes were broken.
People who had no doors or windows
to let light in or out. I, too, knew
what it was like to die from need of
someone - it was like a symphony in p-flat.
I’ve watched rainbows
fall across the sand.
I’ve seen sunsets
through desert flowers.
I’ve watched my baby
smile his first smile.
But I’ve never seen beauty
and power
like that of His love
when it shines
through all of us….
They tell us live-
live for today
He tells us die
all of you
so that you may be born
Their voice is loud
His is soft, yet so clear
They tells us
have a drink
and forget
He tells us
drink and remember.
I open His book
Their voices drown
somewhere in the Red Sea...
It is of His cup
I will drink
In the room where we lie, light
cast a shadow on the sheep
I lay counting.
I would think the very strength
of my need of you
would bring you home.
His staying
or his leaving
is not
the issue anymore.
It is more a question
of whether
or not you can
understand that
it is not
anything
at all
you did
or said.
It is simply
that he needs
not to be loved
now
more than
he needs
to be loved.
I know in time
parts of you
will fade
away
fall off
me
gently
like leaves
of a tree
Surely
they will
fade away
be replaced
by love
and words
from other
places.
And I know in time
my soul
will have
courage
to sing again
and if just for
a moment
you’ll be back
with me
again.
If just you
wouldn’t have left
that one morning….
before breakfast
You might not have left
forever….
Goodbye
wasn’t easy
to say to you
or this place
we’ve called home.
You said,
"You won’t leave,
you can’t do it"
as I closed the door
to us.
So I took
parts of me
lots of you
in brown paper bags
and boxes
even put
our yard
in a brown clay pot
to look at
through my new window.
Six years
isn’t easy
to cram into
one new room
and believe me
the reconstruction
looked feeble.
She is exhausted,
emotionally disoriented,
strangled by her own life
and choices made
so long ago.
She weeps from the
screaming of her own dreams,
her life dismissed by him
and her own reality.
The cancers of anger
settle in her bones
and death piles up
like dirty laundry.
She is simply beautiful
petite with hair like
melancholy grain
swaying past her hips.
Yet, her beauty is twisted,
daunted by her misery and
frustration clings to her
like intestinal flu.
I am exhausted just listening.
For a while
I lied
in my poems
or at least
exaggerated
and left parts out.
I didn’t mean to.
It just seemed
important
at the time
to think
you felt
that way.
Poetry may NOT be copied, reproduced in any fashion or otherwise used, without written permission of the author!
Copyright
1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002,
2003, 2004Debbie Sterling.