Wooden Door. Silver Knob. Twist torque.

White walls dark room svelte armchair, fireplace

Father sits in front, silhouette outlined by gold

Tension in air mother sits across from him

Crowded into a small ball, arms covering kneecaps

 

Come and sit he says, voice commanding

Comply with lips twisting in anger

Mother’s eyes twist away like my lips

What’s this I’ve heard about [insert passion here]?

He asks with a thin veneer of politeness

 

He always says ‘what’s this I’ve heard’

As a preface to questions he finds distasteful

Accompanied with a slight change in blinking pattern

His chin is high in the air, pondering my existence

The entirety of my being, how could I possibly be his progeny

 

How could I be his? When all my life he’s

Twisted shot down but encouraged me by

Living vicariously through successes

He’d like to claim as his

Billowing smoke from fire filters through chimney

Wallpaper creaks with weight of our lives

Happier days leached

 

How could I be his? When all my life he’s

Said I could do anything I desired

Even though I’m a woman

As if it’s a catching disease that

I must cope with like the dreadful cancer Mother contracted

It was all her fault of course

Her hair came out in clumps

Washed down the drain like a horror story

She's fine now in body but broken in spirit

Shown in the way her eyes fold and knees crumble

Beneath the intensity 

 

How could I be his? When all my life he’s

Murdered my ideas in cold blood

Torn apart my passions at first sight

Scarlet bullet holes ripped through my heart

 

The leaves of the trees no longer grow in my spring

But are eternally crumpled on the ground

Brown and crunchy

He steps on them with his steel-toed boots

 

End the pain of being smashed on the sidewalk

Like a burnt out cigarette halfway lit

Arretez-vous!

 

Nothing, I answer. Nothing at all.