Astigmatism

Astigmatism


I know that we are not born into this life
wearing rose tinted glasses.
We enter twenty- twenty seeing all being all.
So I don’t expect rose colored vision.

I have this ailment.
I seek perfection in every heart I love.
All of the bells and whistles, all the flowers even the thorns.
But, when I see, when I think of you all I see
all I feel are contradictions full of broken glass promises
severed ties and a concussed heart .

I also know that some people are dead
even when they are alive.

I am told I was your favorite.
I believe this is a lie.
Seeing that biology will forever tether us
the distance has not made you grow fonder .
I am angry with you.
You are alive, the man who was supposed to love me
while the man who really loved me is dead.

You couldn’t see the value in us,
in me. Not the way that he did and I can’t see you
in my future. My daddy is dead, while my father,
is very much alive. I don’t fool myself into thinking
that we, that I, ever meant anything to you.
My siblings think me hardened by your rejection.
They think I should just let it go. If I could let it go,
we could all get along. Can we all just get along?

Maybe it’s because their eyes never bared witness,
never saw your cheating layered lies.
Never saw the way you stood justified
when you knew your body still wreaked
of another woman’s scent, as you put
your fist to my mother’s face.
Maybe they don’t remember you
telling our mother that everything she touched
would fail as she held us all in the touch
of her trembling reality. They don’t remember
you labeled us failure. I remember.
I can’t not remember.

Why couldn’t you have been him.
The man who wanted us despite where we sprung .
The man who was not perfect , knew we were not
perfect and called us family anyway. Called us success.
Why is he dead and not you?

Yeah, I am pretty fucking angry.
I am disappointed. I am also my mother’s child,
my fathers mistake and my daddy’s executioner,
there are so many things wrong with this picture.

Times like this, I long for rose tint. Just to see this life
as the gods intended full of life and breath and hope.
I know why I seek perfect love in every heart I love, I
just want to know what it looks like. I just want it to look
me in the face and love me back.

I know that some people are dead even when they are alive.
I will not allow this to make me living dead. I will not allow
this to make me mute magic in a constant state of mourning.
So, I will forgive you. Wash me from all this anger, ensuring
that your prophecy will never come true, because I am not failure.
Thanks to you I am the definition of success!

Like-Like

When she touched me the way she touched me.
I liked it. I told her that I liked it. She told me she knew I would.
I said I’d like-like more, please.
“Like-Like?” her smile repeated, “What’s that?”
So, I untangle myself from herself and I told her
what I am about to tell you.

As it was explained to me by my twelve year old son
there are two kinds of like. There is like and there is like-like.
Like is, “I like you.” Like-like is, “Yeah, I LIKE you.”
He is explaining the phenomenon of “like” to me
because he like-likes a girl at school. He tells me how
pretty she is, how they sat together at lunch
and had a conversation. She is so smart and,
“Mom” he says, “she is so nice. I like-like her.”

My heart swells, crashes partly because he is more like me
than I imagined, and mostly because he is more like me
than he knows. I, like him, am a sucker for a beautiful,
smart girl who eats food and can have a conversation.
I also sweep up the shattered shards of my heart
every time a girl breaks it. My son will have his heart
broken a lot. He is just like his mother.

I want to warn him. Explain what the hopeless
in hopeless romantic really means, but I don’t really
believe that shit. I will not believe that romance,
in love or like-like is hopeless. I love the way his face
breaks open when he talks about sharing ideas
with this girl he like-likes. The way he wants to give her art.
I don’t care that he uses all of my paint. He wants to gives her art.
He is just like his mother. The day he stars penning poems
I will arrange the intervention. He gives her art, and he +art
is his heart and she will break it.

When it happens we will snuggle on the couch,
eat comfort food as we commiserate. I will have ice cream
he will eat those Cheetoes that bear no resemblance
to any color on the wheel. We will hold each other up.
The way he held me up when heartbreak just looked like
mom is sad. He brought me cookies back then, a small bite
taken out of each. Making sure they were good and
would not hurt me.

The day he comes home and tells me the girl refused his gift.
He calls his hard work, his consideration, and his art junk.
He tells me he is stupid and that he thought they were friends.
He wishes he could have known some how that she didn’t
like-like him the way he like-liked her. I ask if I can have his heart.
His art. I tell him I like-like him just fine. I wonder if this will jade him.
Before I can get to lost in that thought he tells me about the girl
who sits next to him in science. “She’s pretty mom and she doesn’t
make girly noises when we do something gross in class.
I like her, not like-like, just like.” he says.
I think, “Son you will like-like her soon, because you are so full of hope.
You are just like your mother.”

After the story my girl, she whispers in my ear
tells me she likes-likes me a giggle on her tongue.
I know she will break my heart, but I have hope.
I am just like my son.

So, when she touches me the way she touches me.
I like it. I tell her I like it. She tells me she knew I would.
I say I’d like-like more, please.