She Didn't Know
Four years, My father proposed to her when she didn’t take no for a binding answer. Because she was looking for a man to obey. My mother at six believed you don’t say no to fathers with heavy hands. My father’s voice has always weighed a ton; it hugged me so many nights with songs of Amazing Grace hung above my six-year old pillow like a mobile I fell asleep watching.
Once upon a time, there lived a pair who lead the cubs, lead the packs of brownies and candy sacks and 5 a.m. wrapping paper – wrapped in an Indian blanket watching Tarzan by my father’s bare feet. Childhood meant my brother’s side- kick for every adventure of plexi-leaf pie & kool-aid stained tongues. I always let him drive the dune buggy.
A ghost I once lived beside, separated by one wall that creaked through the night when my parents were three – love was a shared lie: with a cousin, a best friend, a second wife? her blonde wisps unraveled the covers between them, when folding laundry was redefined; from making love to fighting time, I always played my music too loud. It was a song that had no grace, allowed no sleep.
Now – I haven’t been to the side of the house in ages to water the leaves that we made childhood dreams out of: sweet as pie. Now – I trip over my father’s feet and she is a two hour drive I’m happy to leave at arm’s reach. She found a man to redefine no, to swear she was a child when my father touched her. Innocence and my mother: It’s always been a lie.
I’m a keeper, truster, fixer-upper. I believe in star maps and futures. I build the things people can’t fit into a graph. I write and plan and file for every facet you forgot to build a place for. I’m an editor, a morale engineer, a dreamer of people: I believe in my best friend’s stars, Because someone has to dream the dreamers.
Original by Jazillarose