seams and stitching ♡ published

YOUR MOTHER AND FATHER

your friend's parents
are holding each other's hands
right now and you
are swallowing your
throat. or trying to, at least.
you see, some people might not
get it, your parents
can't look at each other
in the eyes without setting
off a land mine.
you can't pretend that sometimes
you wish things
could have been different, better,
but you also can't pretend
that you are always
thanking God that they
are no longer together.
it's not that you miss them--
you can't remember them being
married. the divorce
came when you were two,
back when your father had
no neck and your mother cooked
every night. you see,
people don't get it, there was
that fight across
the room, when you
were in your bouncer,
you watched
them scream back and forth
like a game of ping-pong,
back and forth,
back and forth,
back and forth, and your mother
saw you and a sob
erupted from her mouth.
they don't know that there is still
a wall in some house
broken by your father's fist,
they don't know that sometimes
your father got so high
he couldn't remember your
mother's name,
how could they?
they weren't there for the holiday
your mother tried to
kick your father out after
he got his paper plate of food
she was kind enough to give him
and he exploded,
calling her names you wish
you could forget. they weren't there
to see you race into your room,
collapse against the door
so he couldn't come in. they
wouldn't understand that your mother
has never been proposed to,
that your father has never told her
that he loved her.
your mother didn't even want
to marry him--
something about the first man
you sleep with
having to be your husband.
oh, and don't forget,
the day she pleaded with him,
begging him to tell her what she
was doing wrong,
so wrong that he couldn't love her,
and he replied, deadpan,
with a flat voice:
"you've gotten fat."
no, they could never understand.
but, God, it is so hard for
even you to understand, isn't it?
your mother tells you stories
of how she used to sleep
with her elbow in his eye socket,
and he wouldn't move her.
mustn't there have been
a tremendous amount
of love there, for him to sleep
like that? mustn't there?
the other day your father did
something with his eyes
that made him look twenty-years
younger, fluttered
his eyelashes and sucked in
a breath, and you could see it,
you could see
exactly how your mother
thought she was in love with him.
you wanted to scream.
but there was so much wrong,
he dropped her off somewhere
one day and wasn't
paying attention, he tapped
the backs of her knees
with the bumper because he
wasn't watching her.
how can someone not watch the
person they're in love with
walk away? how can they
be so oblivious as to hit them
with a car?
some days your
mother looks like she
is somewhere you can't reach,
and you wonder
if the memory of
your father put her there. you
asked you mother, when you
were too young
to remember, if she missed him.
she stared up at the sun,
closed her eyes,
and said no.
you can't blame her--
even if this was the man
who left
the trunk open
so she would walk around
the back of the car
to discover the bouquet of
flowers waiting.