Monday, August 4, 2014

More & Less



I learned to love
contradiction
from you.

Oh, not directly. 
We never ventured
into such abstract country.
(There were landscapes 
and portraits to see.)

But nonetheless, 
it came down to me 
in drips and drabs:

the unbearable strain
of loving 
while letting expectations 
be.

And now I'm trying 
to walk that line.
Whether you believe this or not, Mom,
I'm a goddamn contortionist here.
Inching my way
along the seams:

That love can be true,
if also a lie.

That love is blind,
recording all.

That love deforms
in its wish to 
preserve and to
protect.

I let it get to me.
Too much, I bet. 

I am still such 
a child, see. 

Yours.
And not. 

And you are my mother.
But you were someone else, first.

We are still trying here.

And maybe that's enough.  

Maybe that's as much
as we can hope to ask. 

Because I have this horrible feeling,
that if I tried any harder--

I could break us both





6 comments:

the walking man said...

You know I could have spoken the exact same words to my father and I simply know he would never have understood them. So I shrugged and left at 17 and didn't see him but two more times in the next 15 years.
The first he still couldn't accept the peace and the second was his dying day with my voice being the last one he heard, not telling him of the dance between parent and child but telling him it was OK to let go, no regrets here left to worry about and only a better road ahead.

That was near 30 years ago, hope you work it out and become a former child of your mother's and an adult friend soon.

Charles Gramlich said...

I've been thinking a lot about my mom this summer, because I've been working on some memoir stuff. Always some things that never quite get handled.

jervaise brooke hamster said...

Sarah, you`re a stunning babe, if you dont mind me saying so.

Sarah Hina said...

Mark, that's a good way of putting it. I like that.

Glad that yours was the last voice your dad heard.


Charles, that's true. I know I'll miss my mom terribly someday. Important to remember that.


Jervaise, ha.

Stephen Parrish said...

I forgave my mom on her deathbed. That's all I want to say in writing.

Aniket Thakkar said...

Replace Mom, with Dad, and you have my life's story up there too. But you knew that already.