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Click hereAnd to clear things up –
Before the lump in my throat
Grows any larger,
Blocking my airway,
Causing a stroke –
I just want to say
I intended no harm
By shaking off sorrow
At her grim memorial,
But she was my mother
Safely dead in sealed casket.
Could she spy on my sadness?
If I offended frail sensibilities
By forgoing self-pity,
Commiseration in Chanel black,
By wearing neon-bright colors,
My pretense of composure
Framed in lacy frivolity,
I apologize belatedly
For not appeasing my elders.
But, really, all these decades later,
I wonder if they realize
Now that I was only a child,
Heart heavy with new burden,
Tears like a clown's disguised
As popcorn-puffed entertainment.
Once home, the circus over,
I put away my makeup,
Slamming the cabinet,
Shattering its mirror
And caught my pained expression.
In shards of glass below me
Distorting my reflection.
I imagined jagged razors
Ripping me from numbness,
Adding to the tally
Of coffin-tight secrets –
A cul-de-sac of repression.
Growing up sheltered,
Suburban normalcy
Couldn't prepare for the bomb
Dropped on our perfect family.
Terminal sentence looming,
Queen of the house arrested,
We were guilty by association
Like reeking of secondhand smoke
From a funny cigarette
That might have eased suffering
From aggressive breast cancer.
I was fifteen years young,
Embarrassed by death,
Bereft of coping skills,
Complicit in the depth
Of a widower's grief,
A father come undone.
Where did my youth go?
Overnight made a woman,
I sought divine mercy
For a pass/fail grade,
In a crash course in courage,
A detour on the road
To self-discovery.
I screamed!
That's all I had to do
And then,
I caught my breath
Effortlessly,
Like trapeze artists
Tumbling in the air
High above a sturdy net,
Pretending to defy
Certain death.
The deep emotion poured into your words awakens distant painful memories of my father's death. Such a strong man in life, his frail frame in his last year was ravaged by cancer. He has been gone now more than twenty years. So many fonds memories overshadow the pain.