things we carry
1. a menu of choices, life, that could cause a terrible fate
go this way, not that way, but what if that way was the right way, that shirt the best one, just more time washing hands cracked and bleeding
everyone else thinks it’s a joke:
step on a crack, break your mother’s back!
but we knew, we know. it could.
we carry that
2. the lies we kept, the lies we keep, a happy family and all that.
at least you have each other! family is what it’s all about!
we carry the untold, the lies we share, all the things we pretend not to know
we carry that
3. and the guilt
I would’ve knocked down doors, smashed in windows, demanded a guard, made a scene til they carried me away kicking and screaming,
anything to keep my boy alive
I carry that
(I want to burn buildings down, a rage inside of me, someone has to pay.)
4. overdrafting to buy him a cowboy set for his 8th birthday when I couldn’t pay my rent. I don’t regret that.
I carry that one too (a tiny flower growing out of cracked pavement)
I can feel both the burn and the tiny drop of relief.