The Old Man With the Cat Hairs

God, I'm gong through menopause, You

see my skin drenched at 2 in the morning.

I wake up to lower the thermostat to 60,

as I pile more blankets on my daughter,

but there is so much sweat collected on

my top lip. I haven't had a period in

months. Forget about ever having

another child. Didn't you hear me I

haven't had a period in over four months?

Earlier today he called. You know the old

man with the cat hairs on his sweater.

He turned 78 two days ago. God, you know

I hate the smell of his car. It smells like

stale earth is that possible? Death, dying

or mold, like that lost potato when it rots,

and you can't find it, but you can smell it

God do you and I argue? I speak to you

in the bathroom, in tongues, and with my

arms full of scratches, and then I throw

the plastic razor

What happened to us Lord?

What happened to the dreams in my

head, and the visions I thought were from

you. Then my thoughts attack me, "Cut

some more, who gives a shit."

I just came home from church, and the

communion wafer melted on my tongue.

I thought we were close, when I wept

during Mass. I thought you heard my

prayers for Emma.

"That she would lose weight, and that

she would go to school,

and that she would stop cutting."

Its been years, the alphabet soup of

meds, Abilify, Depakote, Effexor, Geodon,

Haldol, Lithium, Lamictal, Prozac,

Respiridol, Seroquel, Tegretol....

Lord, what happened? The Cross fell

heavily across my shoulders. I look at the

fingers on my left hand with no tan lines,

the scars across my arms, faded and

straight. The intense thought then, that

lied to me, the truth that disfigured me.

God, I'm lost inside the rooms of this

apartment. Only five rooms and I am

swallowed by the failure of my life. I suck

on the plastic of the diet Pepsi only to

discover it is flat and lukewarm. My

reflection aged. The woman in the mirror

is in her 40's. But she hasn't married yet.

How could she have aged so quickly?

Dar Lord, its me again. I missed my

parents together. They haven't been

together in over 20 years.

But I miss them being together.

Remember the brown

impala? How I trusted my father would

keep the vows he made to my mother?

He watered the grass so vigilantly, so

faithfully. Do we care more about the

things in our lives that have no real

value? Those nicely trimmed lawns,

and the track homes, with those broken lives

inside,

the cops whose jack boots trampled the flowers.

I hated being 9 and looking out the

window to see them take daddy away

in handcuffs. Remember how I begged him

not to start yelling at momma.

Then he took the handkerchief off the

table and whipped it across her face. I

didn't want to stare.

Then he broke Scotty's leg with the

croquet stake. Scotty stayed in that dog

house for months that daddy built for him.

But Scotty hated him after that.

We used to watch Sonny and Cher,

and they'd sing that song that made me

believe we were a family. "All I ever need

is you." And I used to pray to God to make

us stick like glue.

Then Emma's father left me too.

Remember my mucous filled prayers,

my rounded belly on the ground like a

snake's? This time it would be different.

I would look out of different windows

this time and see what I wanted. The splinters

and fragments I stayed with when the

grenade he threw went off inside me.

The prayers I make to You over her

sleeping body.

"She's Our Daughter."

With the lines that now live on my face.

With the smiles that have come and gone,

and the tears that have washed over me.

Let her path not be so indelicate or the

concrete be so uneven. If she could put

her own razors down, and stop relying on

food the way she does. If there would be

someone to put a tan line around her

finger, and mean it. If the words he

promised would make their children be

whole. If we could stop taking pills, Lord.

There is an empty world, unswallowed

sighs, open eyes that long to be closed

in sleep

lists of prayers in my heart, unresolved

revelations that live on the edges of

remembrance.

I kiss a child's unlined face, her perfect

pink cheeks seem to glow, there are the

moments in my reflection that touch

the corners of grace, when thoughts are

not bullets of confusion, God touches the

rough places, and kisses my lined face,

maybe He thinks more of the wounded

memories I carved into scars, and I can

finally forgive the many years between

midnight and dawn.

(Taken from The Girl and Other Poems by Matty B. Duran sold on Amazon.com)