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!