Work-in-progress

I was thinking today about the connection between domestic violence and state violence, about violence that comes from desperation and the enforced poverty of our economic system. I was thinking about what role choice plays in violence and whether coercion itself is a form of violence. I was thinking about my relationship with my mother and her relationship with the military, about dependency and abuse, about my past...

Here is a poem I started a while ago but that still isn't finished. I want it to be better- clearer, more direct, more personal. But details are hard these days. I'm working on it.


I tried to write you a letter today
The pen, tossing and turning,
Bold typeface grasping and yearning,
For words that might makes sense
Against the backdrop of our estrangement
Against the space and time we don’t know our way through
Against the walls laid over bricks and years
Mortar bound in custom granite, tears
Mortar rounds in children’s ears
Sound like each time the streets reverberate with
An invocation to bring wars home
landing too close to the home I never had
In the seventeen year old signature
that was desperate enough to exchange twenty years
for security, poor medical care and a pension.
In the throbbing veins of his neck synchronizing
With his grip pressing me firmly against the wall
As spit shrapnel bombarded my face.
In the smoke-glazed eyes that couldn’t find
the courage to soften for your daughter
once in twenty years and counting.
You’d think I would have learned how to write to you
During the absences that permeated my childhood
with the stale bitterness of sea salt and engine oil
Fermented over the six months you lived on
Meclazine* and the conviction that you were better
than those Dirty, poor people.
How much anger can I write away or leave behind
Like not-so hidden mines
Exposed partially but fully loaded?

*Naval generic of sea sickness medication

Unbelievably Angry

Why do I do this to myself?

It had been a year. I told her I wanted to see her. I asked if she would come see me. I pointed out that my Birthday had just passed and that she was retired so she had a lot of time with no commitments. I told her I wanted it to be like a vacation, and I even offered to pay the plane ticket. She said she'd think about it.

I called her two days later to see if she was ready to agree. She informed me that she had been hired for a job at a superstore and was starting the next morning.When I asked her why she had gotten a job just when I asked her to come see me, she explained that she needed the money for the ticket I already offered to buy. I expressed frustration that we would have to schedule around her full-time job now. She said she had told her manager she wanted two or three days off in a row to see me.

I pointed out that if she did this then she would spend one day driving here, one day flying back and we would have so little time in between. I told her I wanted to spend more time. She said she couldn't ask for more. I said I'd try to work around it.

I rearranged my schedule and figured out a way to get to Michigan by driving 15 hours with a stranger from craig's list, spending $150 worth of gas. Cutting out the travel time, that meant two days to spend with her after a year.

When I got there, she informed me that she was working the next two days for eight hours each day.

All in all, I'm pissed that I waisted my time coming here to see someone who obviously went so far out of her way to ignore me. If she wasn't willing to meet me 1/10 of the way, then why am I here?Why is it that I give her so many chances? If I am so totally disappointing to her and she is to me then why do we still have a relationship?