You shall become the sum of my limitations.
How I fall asleep to the speech
of discord, how I will never reach farther than where
my hands already are. You will become
my eulogy author, staining the words
with the ache of newly bereaved I will become more-
sweeter, caring, the protector
of all cats that the neighbors complain about and I
will leave for you to clean up, ship out
and later, surrounded by the newspapers and silence
my coffee mug clutched in your hand
you will remember me without the aura of newly dead
how I never finish anything, even though death is the ultimate ending
I will somehow mess it up and you, who never
deserved the disaster of me, shall be left
to make sense of life I can not comprehend. Left
with my hair and eyes and confusion; with my collection
of junk that has never really amassed
to much more than what it is.
Left in the quiet trying to put together something
out of nothing and you will curse
the crooked nose, crackling knuckles. The thighs that rub together
when we walk regardless of our size. Our fear of heights.
Impulse crying and sleepless nights.
And I will be remembered through your own limitations.
.
Author notes
second draft/ messing around with line placement and such...
...
Comments
1 - 5 of 5
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A liked this alot. It has some profound meaning to it.
"my hair and eyes and confusion" - this is a really good line. The eyes convey emotion, people who cannot make eye contact are considered "crazy" or anti-social, eyes are also an attribute that relates to your genes, your relationship to your family.
If I had an advice, I would push some images farther. Like the one of the "cat protector", why does this matter for your daughter? For us readers? You have many good images that could be explored a bit more I believe.
It is only advice, because I really enjoyed your poem and it had me think !
Good job
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I like your style of writing and I like the poem but it leaves me with more questions than answers. Which I think is the purpose of your intent.
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Wow. This is really quite some poem that you have written in here!
I love this kind of prose style anyway so I was happy to run into it. And I liked finding a mother daughter poem because you don't see enough of those. I think that's any mother's worse fear is that her daughter will get all her worst traits or not think of her in the best terms. All we can really do is love each other and hope for the best though, right?
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As someone said below, this is slightly disturbing but I can't really put my finger on why that should be the case. The thighs rubbing together was possibly the most disturbing image.
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This is very vivid and it is oddly disturbing to me. "Left
with my hair and eyes and confusion; with my collection
of junk" really hit home. Its a simple and strong image which conveys the expected confusion of a child who loses their mother. I like the point of view of this poem and where it is going. Here, I see a daughter who inherits both positive and negative qualities, and the mother seems to hope that she will continue to live through the child. Fascinating piece work.
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