Tuesday, August 19, 2008

From Alice Walker

Did This Happen to Your Mother?
Did You Sister Throw Up A Lot?


I love a man who is not worth
my love.
Did this happen to your mother?
Did your grandmother wake up
for no good reason
in the middle of the night?

I thought love could be controlled.
It cannot.
Only behavior can be controlled.
By biting your tongue purple
rather than speak.
Mauling your lips.
Obliterating his number
too thoroughly
to be able to phone.

Love has made me sick.

Did your sister throw up a lot?
Did you cousin complain
of a painful knot
in her back?
Did your aunt always
seem to have something else
troubling her mind?

I thought love would adapt itself
to my needs.
But needs grow too fast;
they come up like weeds.
Through cracks in the conversation.
Through silences in the dark.
Through everything you thought was concrete.

Such needful love has to be chopped out
or forced to wilt back,
poisoned by disapproval
from its own soil.

This is bad news, for the conservationist.

My hand shakes before this killing.
My stomach sits jumpy in my chest.
My chest is the Grand Canyon
sprawled empty
over the world.

Whoever he is, he is not worth all this.

And I will never
unclench my teeth long enough
to tell him so.

(S is back from his week away in CO...nothing really happened between us - just a conversation. It was a bad night.)

3 comments:

Hyde said...

Oh, man... Sorry you're feeling it, Spins! I definitely know the feeling. Wish I could do more to help.

love,
h

Cody Bones said...

Sorry Spins

HistoryGeek said...

Today, I told my co-worker that when I'm upset with him, he still makes me laugh.

She replied that that's probably why he's still alive :).

That made me giggle...and he did make me laugh. So, while it's not all good, it's less angsty.