wordplayground

and she makes me a playdough 
cake on my birthday, with 
2 candles because she's two and
she sings "happy birthday
dear my sister"

and she asks me if i like
my pillows and she asks me if
i'm happy and when she's angry
she asks me if i see her eyebrows

she wants me to hold her hand 
and she wants me to lay down 
next to her and sing chitty chitty
bang bang i love you and dance and
play ring around the rosie 
and make her playdough 
cheese for her playdough pizza

and she says "only my sister" and
out of the blue she says
"i love you" and she says "how
about that?"

and she wants me to hold her hand
how can i let go?

now

my sister knows my secrets, things
i never even told you
it was never about a real phone
call, it was the disconnect
and having repaired the line
these words become our past

i opened myself
to my mom and she proved 
everyone wrong when she responded
"that's okay" and now,
she loves me as i am, although 
she probably always did.

so we've moved on from these things and
the words remain as a reminder
of where we've been, they're
a cautionary flag of the devastation
of anger unharnessed.

but they're not now.

she shuts herself in her room and
just
sits 
on that computer 
all day long
and you have to knock on her door
and 
tell her
to come out
and then 
stand outside her door
until she does.

this week i am 
your yellow adidas pants
iced coffee with valencia
and soy yogurt.
i am my baby sister's 
best friend.

i came back to visit
(they call it coming home)
but all you could see
were the fragments i left behind
tiny pieces of myself,
pieces i forgot, but to you,
they're all that i am.
in the thirty seconds of your time,
i realized you had forgotten most of me,
and clung to little moments.
the years we spent together,
worked together, lived together,
the music, the parties, the jokes,
the smiles, the tears,
how could you forget?
you remembered the blood on the kitchen floor,
and in order to forgive your mom 
you had to hate me.
you remembered that i left,
and in order to forgive your dad
you had to hate me.
but part of you must remember
that there was so much more.
(i miss you)

running running running
now that something's gone wrong
i sat and did nothing this whole time
i stayed on the sidelines by choice
i listened, i wrote, i occasionally called,
i was never really there
but now, now that it's too late,
i'll fight for you, i'll stand, i'll cry
i'll come running running running
but i was never really there
of course, now i'd gladly let you
nag me, slap me, tell me lies
now i'll listen, i could even really be there
but you won't have the energy
to pick at our imperfections
to lift your hand to slap my leg
to even keep track of the lies you told
i'll come running running running
to find i don't recognize your face
but i was warned of that
i'll have nothing to say

dear mother,
i have something to tell you,
something you don't want to hear.

i revert
to a seven-year-old
crying over spilled milk,
afraid to admit
that my grandfather was dead
or that 
i never believed 
i was eating the body and blood 
of your jesus christ.

mom
i saw you in my dream last night
you were waiting
watching me
i still don’t know what to say
how do i explain
myself
?
so i drove away
without looking back

mom
i saw you in my dream last night
you were silent
hating / loving me
you’d packed up my things
i was nervous and
afraid
how do i explain
my life,
dreams, thoughts, actions
?
so i walked away
without looking back

my favorite pajama pants have a hole between the legs
makes it so i could make love to any boy without taking them off
like sex without revealing who i actually am
but i don't want to make love to any boy
i don't want to feel old and out of breath as if i were sixty
i want the new flannel pajamas that were my closest thing to a father
i want youth and innocence and wide questioning eyes
what happened to those things?
i am not the same
i have a father now
but i also have a pair of dirty pajamas with a hole between the legs
that's what growing old is, dirty worn out clothing

my grandmother's medical tape is so old it is sticky on both sides
the poorly bandaged wound on my foot sticks to the ground when i walk,
the something that has held me down my whole life.

at the advice of her brother my desperate aunt bought a heavy duty garbage disposal
now she can throw everything in the sink and with the flick of a switch grind all the crap of life to nothing.
that's what life is, repression in the form of medical tape or a heavy duty garbage disposal.

i was scared and alone
i wanted
a mommy to walk me through this
i cried, i screamed
i wanted
a mommy to hold my hand
i don’t have that
mom
where are you?
i want to be a child 
unaware
trusting even your angry words
i want to go back
and start over
i want to go home
a home to go back to
without fear
i walked across the street alone
i wanted
a mommy to hold my hand

when i was seven i crossed the entire pacific ocean on a piece of wood that i ripped from my grandfather's casket. i ended up in a land where i didn't recognize the people or understand the language. i survived on the kindness of strangers, who fed me food and lies. i was discovered by my family when i was fourteen and they spit the truth in my face. i couldn't handle it. i yearned for the foreign land where i was alone with my thoughts, the lies, and the memory of a grandfather. i tried to go back to the foreign land, but the strangers saw the truth in my eyes and would not feed me anymore. i returned to the family that despised me, they took me in out of obligation. i learned to fear and to hate and to love and to fend for myself. i learned that there really is no point, no meaning to it all. the best i could do was feed a needy stranger food and lies.

in every introduction
he used to say
i was 
thirteen going on thirty,
so grown-up i would think
i could do it all alone.
was he mistaken?
what if i was
thirty going on thirteen,
so grown-up that later
i would look back and
cling to remnants of a childhood,
refusing to be
so grown-up.

she’s the kind of person you could take in and love and never stop loving just because there’s so much good even if she said something you didn’t want to hear, you could nod your head and smile and still love her just as much