Thinking of You OR The Erasure of Instruction in Favor of Rebellion at the Expense of a Wonderful Light - a prose poem

Memory is a funny thing when it is overcome by the present. Especially as the faded images of youthful wonderment are replaced with the angsty rebellion of young adulthood. When the innocent perceptions are thwarted by the absolute bitterness that comes with growing up. Betrayed by time, my promises broken, because when you were made promises as a kid, they were everlasting and evergreen.

Its painful seeing the ones you love, ignoring all the signs and times of instruction, and care, and understanding, and some how allowing themselves to twist it all into something horrific. Maybe its that I have witnessed true terror in the stories of those in my life, who have had awful terrors done upon them, that I can't quite see the demonizing of a saint.

Memories fluctuate like water. Like a wave that kissed the shore, and returns to strike it hard. Water that was once cool, and refreshing, now boiling to cause damage. Where did the shift even happen? When will, if ever, the world truth become clear, and the colors sorted out, instead of seeing in this black and white. Because, surely the world is not black and white, light particles that dance in the atmosphere being shattered into the sun, they create the colors. Prism patterns across space and time, on the surface and internally.

How do we only see ourselves, and our own self-hatred, and completely ignored the hands that have tried in vain to guide a bitter soul into some path of light.

How can you crucify a saint? A maternal instinct to protect, to provide love, to instruct, even with their own flaws, how can you burn them at the stake? Because you didn't like the way they spoke to you, because you couldn't accept a lecture, simply because you sucked at keeping notes.

Memory is this fickle thing. And its becoming harder to see the point in trying anymore, if the rose colored glasses have been replaced by glasses that are shards of their glass, that bleed out, and cause them some sort of victim hood.

The saint remains a saint, and you can only hope with time that they might see that, but you have your doubts. Memory is a funny thing, and none of us see it the same, but none of us should simply assume the worst, that is why the world suffers, has suffered and will suffer. Because none of us will take the time to inspect ourselves, will only point out the filth on the others hands, instead of the feces that has smothered our arms, so that it is impossible to embrace.

I will always love my mother, and that is something that not everyone can do, because she has always been the guiding light, even as she faced her own extinction, she has always been the saint for me. Memory is a dastardly thing, that it can be ignored, to create a present wrong, freed from the context of everything that came before, shame on that view.

This saint does not deserve that. Surely, she does not.

Stage Directive - A Hermit Crab Poem

Act 1 Scene 1

The stage should be lit with a red hue. Hell is the mood. Angry. This is a family drama. But don’t saturate it too much. Keep brightness lowered. Emphasize red, but a red that is not mistaken for love. Anger is the mood. This is hell. A family drama. The curtain will be open on these secrets. The red hue should highlight the sole kitchen table. Three chairs are present. They are empty. One for the mother, one for the son, and one for the father. He is never there.

MaryBeth: (Offstage) I never knew someone so horrible. I never knew them in my life. But under my roof. I never knew it.

Light is still red. But there’s a tonal shift. Gray scaled upwards so that its moving to marry white. The light should be dark still, but not as dark as the beginning.

Peter ENTERS. He’s a small boy. He climbs onto his chair and sits. He picks up a plate and throws it behind his head. It shatters. This should all be captured in the new red light.

MaryBeth ENTERS now.

MaryBeth: And as to prove my point.

MaryBeth grabs hold of Peter’s ear and lifts him from the chair. She slaps him across the face.

Peter: But it is only a plate mama. It is only a plate. Can’t you see, truthfully, that it is only a plate. And now it’s in pieces. But only a plate mama, see? Only a plate in pieces.

MaryBeth: No son. No son it is not. It is never just a plate.

Peter: Only if you say so mama. Only if you say so.

The action freezes on MaryBeth and Peter and the stage goes dark. Adult Peter steps into spotlight.

Adult Peter: I am what she said I was. I am. But I’ll still smash plates. And I’ll still not care. For a plate is a plate, just as a sentence is words arranged to make meaning. Make meaning, yeah, that’s what we’re doing. Making meaning.

Spotlight goes out. Stage is blacked out now.

Act I Scene 2

This is What it Is - a poem

the flower pot fell against the concrete.
you know that it shattered, so why should I tell you, fill in the blanks with you knowledge of flower pots.
the flower pot fell against the concrete.
but did it shatter?
perhaps this particular flower pot was resistant to breaking, blessed by a crafty witch, but this is reality, not fantasy.
the flower pot fell against the concrete.
this is just what it did, there need not be more to this story than that,
but so what if there was?
and so what if there isn't?

why does this story keep  coming back?
for what is the point of this narration if not to bring us back to our basic instincts of the rules of gravity, but there are no rules of gravity here, Newton's laws only graced the pages,
Newton's laws defined the natural laws but not the laws of pages.

the flower pot fell against the concrete,
but I don't give two shits after that
this is no story to be told, this is just a thing to write about
like anything to write about
we assign meaning, we assign truth,
these are but words, this is put a page

so,
the flower pot fell against concrete,

and so it did.