again
i am crippled by rejection
attacks my gut
thirty-four years after
my father blamed me
for his Cancer

ever since, i haven't been able
to break off with men,
even while knowing
that to continue
would be destructive
i have observed
how relationships ebb and flow
yet i have so much trouble...
Let them go

What was done
gets done again
as electric pain charges
and sentences me

your misery, like a dog sniffs
out another woman to blame,
unbounded here he come
bringing my time old lies:
if you just said the kind words
everything would be OK again,
but it's his story
that makes me
feel so panicked,
so ashamed.

Misery lies that if you
just admitted to the truth,
then
we both would be healed
as if he'd never
locked me out
that summer
and then died

and as if you didn't end up
homeless yourself at sixteen
like me your memory is visceral
a con that we could be forgiven
if a lover just took it back, but

I didn't create your trouble and
I'm no man's Shiva
not Destroyer nor Creator

just a woman
a child can't answer
your charges
my gut only feels
the old knives
of blame for something
i don't understand

you revive him
and I don't like you either
when you're like that
so take it back
you're not my father,
not my Judge,
neither
are my Gods, so
remove that curse
you plague me,
try feeling instead
it won't kill you.
...don't hand me your shame
i have my own and
don't hand me down your clinging and rejecting either
I'm not your mother
I'm not a parent who threw you away
and neither of us were meant for trash,
though our parents put us out
as if to be collected,
no, that's nothing to love
so don't you do it

your sorrow's yours, i have enough and your latest indignation
is just an old rendition
of those stories
poignant victims but
you could turn into a hero if they made you wiser,
but first you must unfold them
instead of re-inventing
tragedy with new actors

I'm not screening your old movies,
while your stranded self is sitting
on the curb with his hands dangling,
with eyes cast down frozen
he's preserved in time but waiting
to be taken back decades later

I must be my own father
you must be your own mother
we must stop this rejection recollection
from finding each other
after all, we are stronger-
We've Survived!