blocked 🚫
mere months
after The Transition
of he who was The Force
keeping family afloat,
tethered,
ever so delicately.
without him,
shedding,
the masks came off,
niceties abandoned.
“Love” disintegrated
to the point of blocking 🚫
take nothing personally.
still, sad,
feels abrasive,
like a middle finger 🖕
borne of deep hurt
a sense of disrespect,
expectations unmet.
The Circle 🔵 dwindling
by death
and, now, blocks 🚫
everything
so tender,
tenuous,
ephemeral.
I don’t recall
ever
seeing your violent side.
To me, you were always
one-of-a-kind –
the cool,
tall,
dark & handsome uncle.
Never saw the part of you
who terrorized
your beautiful wife;
the you
who would beat
women
children
with a baseball bat!
Could I have loved you
if I had witnessed that?
Like Jekyll & Hyde,
we humans.
So many contradictions
and perplexing multitudes.
“Good” and “evil”
in equal measure
cutting through
all our hearts.
Are we to be confined
to the worst moments
of our lives?
We are made
crafted
molded
into who we become.
No innate monsters,
only beings
tragically un-done
wrecking havoc
in their altered state.
How do we be different –
infuse more love and tenderness;
choose significantly less violence,
champion wit and wisdom
instead of whips on children’s skin
and weapons of mass destruction?
a constant gnawing
deep within
to be fed
and tended to
through The Mouth
that did not know
its mother’s milk
suckled instead
by the middle finger
of its right hand
The Mouth that spoke
not a word
its first few years
now relentlessly demands
food
attention
silence
rarely satiated
riddled with shame
and melancholy
a downward spiral
often begins.
here, now
this time
a long breath
slowly let out
through The Mouth
gentler with the hunger
less intolerance
more patience.
what have we become?
un-done
dis-embodied
dis-membered
fear-full
looking
here then there
longing
for a time
that never was
desperate
for salvation
from the outside
un-able to go
in
down
and way back
to lineage
repressed
depressed
lonely
confused
thankfully 🙏
a few
awakened
just enough
perhaps
to save us all from
The Brink
I will not carry your Iron,
I will no longer bear your Burdens,
I shall not strive to Redeem you,
I will only Thank you,
for being the vehicle of this birth,
the channel through which this River flowed
into illusion, destined to forget
and then
to remember.
I was to spread these Wings
perhaps wider than was allotted to you,
parents, who did what was your story to do,
to “love” as you were “loved”.
Alas, ancestral trauma,
we drag it from
generation to generation
iteration to iteration
until it dissipates,
withers,
is transformed
back into the Love
from which it
ultimately
came.
All trauma is golden
at its core –
was crafted in service
and protection.
Without it –
likely no ancestry,
no bloodlines,
no opportunity to
re-member;
no journey to take
back to where it all began…
I will not carry your Iron,
I will play
my Role
in melting it.
Inspired by and indebted to Mary Oliver’s stunning poem, Flare
“my mother, alas, alas,
did not always love her life,
heavier than iron it was
as she carried it in her arms, from room to room,”
burgeoninc 