I sit on the couch
thinking the light should be dimmed.
I absently scratch my drawn up knee
I look to the door
then to the clock.
you have done it again
I knew you would
but still.
he snores in the other room
my husband, my mate
the guy who raised you
since you say he's not your father.
when you were little
you liked being from the pumpkin patch
grown on a green bean vine
hatched from an egg.
now you speak of her
the one who didn't care for you then
probably doesn't care now.
I may not have gone through childbirth
but I have definitely labored.
Author notes
This was written three days after my 18th birthday and seven years, three months before my tubal ligation. I'm not sure if me of the future is the narrator or it's someone else. She is the same narrator from my poem "it sets".
Written March 28th, 1998
What did you think
Comments
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This is an interesting and deeply written poem for me. Being a parent/nonparent is often hard on the ones involved. It's so easy (convenient) to throw out the "you're not my father (or mother)" thing. It sometimes makes me feel that an adopted or step child should never be told the truth of their birth until they're about 90 years old or something.
You've written a very poignant, expressive poem. very good write
And thank you for reading some of my work. I don't get online much so this is a little bit of a prolonged 'thank you' but please know that it's much appreciated.
ramblin -
I like it. Im not sure you should have cut the lines in half mid-sentence so many times. It made the poem harder to read. The idea was great. I thought it was an adopted child rebelling. Hope that's right. However, things like hearing the husband snoring and scratching the knee got off track from what the poem was saying. The husband might not even be that important. Maybe the peom should just be about the relationship beween mother and child. The lines:
"I may not have gone through childbirth
but I have definitely labored."
were brilliant. They are my favorite. -
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Thanks for commenting. The poem came first, the punctuation came a few years later. There are natural breaks at the end of each line. It is the way I naturally express myself, in little semi-discreet bits. This poem is a vignette, like most of the things I write. Without the "off track" stuff, there is no poem:
A parent
"dang it, my daughter is out late again"
THE END
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