Lyricizes

On the monitor I can see

the children of my bad-days,

the offspring of my ineffective living,

clustering like fruit

disallowing any real life

to root.

I have conceived

a syndrome

a malfunction

a sabotage,

a betrayal.

(prompted by a free-writing exercise, includes bits of things I’ve written before.)

I don’t mind anymore that you died when you did.

It was too much for me at 6-years-old,

but now, I can take it.

It is better that you went when you did.

Death elevates, and you are greater for it.

Oh how they glorify you Daddy, they speak with such fondness.

You will always be the hero.

And I will never have to hate you

for not accepting the choices I make,

or the mistakes I swopped spit with.

You are unsullied to me Daddy;

Generous, buying me talking dolls and magnetised chess sets.

Erudite, leaving behind the library I feed off.

You, with your Bob Marley ties and feathered fedoras, you are super-cool daddy.

Oh how they love you Daddy, they remember your softness.

And I’m a sucker too, like that.

I’ve inherited your ears;

yielding sponge, soaking up sob-stories,

Absorbing the fabled and for-real.

I no longer grudge what you’ve passed on to me.

This bold nose,

and bolder-chin,

these little eyes,

It’s like you had to go so I could take your place.

I will chase your ghosts

on google,

search out your face

in every pixel,

pocket the sparks

your wit threw into the corners.

I knew a boy

who puffed and passed on the roofs of higher education

with women who did no good for him,

who had his open heart shat in,

who then faked it because it was just harder to be real,

who dreamt too big for his head,

who did too crazy for us all,

who grew up

to become a father.

A ponytail
of messed up brown static,
green eyes a little less red
than her nose
but just as watery,
and even on that day,
she was all
the beauty I wanted to be
at eleven-years-old.

In blue pinafores
and gold collars
and ribbed stockings,
we were uniformed as equals.
Yet she always had my head on tilt,
upward and upward;
my neck sick from the angle I worshipped her.

Once, I heard her say she’d never
touch a boy she wasn’t married to.
Because she was perfection at her worst
and therefore wise.
I agreed.
And me with my awkward everything
hunched down by the weight of short-sight,
granny-cut fringe and boys who said I was fat,
I figured it would be a lot easier
to walk purity anyway.

When most things come easy to me,
I’ve never been able to count my ribs.
My belly’s been a pot since
I learnt how to eat out of one.

I can remember
always being that
meaty kinda girl,
“large and friendly”
if you like your type in stereo.

When most things
come easy to me,
why must this be the hardest?