17 comments

Speculative Contemporary Drama

In an untitled folder

Right on the desktop

I found my mother’s poetry


There was a hesitation

In choosing

To read it


My mother spent her life

Arranging photographs

On a mantle

That was never dusted


She held sentiment

For torn t-shirts

Broken VCR’s

Dented cans of crinkle-cut carrots

Ingredients for a peach cobbler

She’d never make


Everything meant something

Except for those closest to her


We were unable

To carry meaning

Because we wouldn’t

Stop moving


Despite our best efforts

We could not empty ourselves out

Sufficiently

And so placing things

Within us

Was too complex a process


My mother saw me

And wished that I could hold

All the anger

She had left over

From a childhood spent

Being asked to solve

Her father’s absence


As angry as I got

It was never enough

To remove the quantities

That poisoned her


I was not her child

I was broken dialysis

I was her missing veins

I was her stale sugar cookies


Clicking on her first poem

I was struck

By how much

She let out


If I ever suspected her

Of being creative

I assumed it would be

In a visual sort of way


Paintings hidden in the garage

With red and black blotches on them

Religious undertones

Or simple villages

That spoke to a dream she had once

And couldn’t shake


Instead here were these poems

These long poems

These epics


No word or description spared

More said in one piece

Than she’d spoken to me

In the last year of her life


That might be

Why dialysis

Is on my mind


That might be

Why suddenly

I think in poetry


I am no creative myself

But my first husband

Encouraged me to write

And so I wrote

And as I wrote

I wrote myself dry

And never filled up again


As therapy, it was helpful

But it didn’t bring about

A sense that I had any

Artistic contributions

To deliver


I was not surprised

That my mother

Hid her poetry

But I was surprised

At how much of it there was


Over a hundred poems

In that one little folder

Locked away in a computer

We used to play solitaire on

As children


The computer my father

Sat quietly at night-after-night

Having an affair with a woman

He would eventually leave my mother for

Only to travel to France

And find out that it was all a scam


He came back

On a Tuesday


My mother made him pot roast

And we all ate together

As though nothing had happened

Even though my mother was now

A woman marked by her distrust

Of any man

Who would claim to love her


I searched through the work

For any disclosures

About what she was feeling

At that time


The poems began

Around the time

My father brought

The desktop home

From a surprise trip

To CompUSA


I don’t remember

My mother ever using

The computer

But the timestamps

Are from either late at night

When we were all asleep

Or early in the morning

Before getting us ready

To go to school


The times are more illuminating

Than the words

Because the words

Detail the same thing

Over and over


A story of a girl

Going to a lake

To look for a boy


The boy never arrives

Or he does

But he’s different

He’s changed, somehow

And the girl asks him

Why, why has he changed?


In some poems

He explains to her

That’s he grown

That it’s aging

It’s natural

That she’ll change as well


In some of her poems

He stands there, silent

Refusing to give her

The answers she craves


She beats on his chest

Begging him to explain

How he could show up

In this way

Like a stranger

Like a statue

She’d never noticed

Erected on the shores

Of a lake


The poems where

He doesn’t show up at all

Are not the shortest

Quite the opposite in fact


Her protagonist waits and waits

And so the poems go on

And in them

She, the girl, or my mother--


Who knows?

Who can say

Where author ends

And character begins?


In those poems

The girl traverses

Her history with the boy

With the lake

All the things

That look like water


The behavior of the surface

The tension after the ripples

The displacement as she places her hand

Down a few inches

And a few inches more


Why would my mother

Go on and on

About a lake

That only exists

In her mind?


Why wouldn’t she

Write about something

That means something

To her?


She didn’t grow up near a lake

There is no biography here

No clues to a past

No detective work

To be done


Why spend so much time

Living in repetition?


Staying up so late

Getting up so early

Just to write the same poem

Unless there was

A parable there somewhere?


What am I meant

To learn

From something

I was never meant

To read?


The invasion

Of a dead woman’s

Privacy

Does not disturb

My surface


It’s the futility

Of the invasion

That rankles me


When I was thirteen

I came home from school

And my mother

Was sitting on the edge

Of my bed

My open diary

In her lap


‘So,’ she said, almost pleased,

‘This is where you keep it all’


Did she mean the anger?

Did she mean the anger I felt towards her?

Did she mean all the things

I never said

Sitting at the dinner table

Chewing on pot roast

That tasted like submission


Not just to a man

Or to forgiveness

But to what life demands?


My mother and I were

Adjacent countries

Where any alliance

Is only one misstep

Away from being a war


Proximity precludes

Any real sense of peace


I spent a week

Reading each of her poems

Re-reading a handful

Dissecting one or two


The one that I nearly memorized

Featured the girl at the lake

Never mentioned the boy


If you hadn’t read

The other poems

You wouldn’t know

There even was a boy


But you know she’s waiting

She talks about not

Knowing how to swim

As she steps into the lake


She doesn’t say she’s sad

She doesn’t think of heartbreak

She describes the velocity

Of a Sunday


The way it comes up

From within you

And sits in your chest


Not how a Tuesday would do it

Tuesdays sit on your shoulder


However heavy

They might be

They do not weigh you down


In the poem

The girl walks

Into the lake

Right up to her waist

And then the words end


They stop mid-line

And this enrages me

Because what am I to

February 03, 2024 21:39

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17 comments

Kailani B.
20:09 Feb 12, 2024

Poetry is something I don't normally read, but this makes me want to find more of it. Thanks for sharing!

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Story Time
02:21 Feb 13, 2024

Thank you so much!

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21:59 Feb 10, 2024

I really like this. I like the flow, the little details, the Tuesday. The way the character is slowly getting to know something about their mother but they don't know exactly what. I love the clever ending. I wrote something similar (sort of, but not) for this prompt and thought I had an original idea, but yours is so much more creative. I really hope yours does well in the contest.

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Story Time
00:09 Feb 11, 2024

Thank you so much, Katharine. It's not listed under recommended stories, so I don't think I have a shot, but I appreciate you reading it :)

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08:12 Feb 11, 2024

Hi, that's the second time someone has mentioned recommended stories but I can't find them anywhere! Could you please drop me a link to where this page sits? Thanks!

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Story Time
03:51 Feb 12, 2024

There's no one singular page (that I know of), but if you check any category, the recommended stories are listed at the top.

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Michał Przywara
22:34 Feb 09, 2024

I'm not much of a poetry person, though I've been working at it hard this year - so I'm not the best qualified for critiquing. Nevertheless, turning in a narrative poem like this within a week is impressive! And there's lots to like here. “He came back / On a Tuesday” - I like this whole section. A couple lines paints the whole marriage, and presents a situation that's both absurd and believable. “A story of a girl / Going to a lake / To look for a boy” - such a peculiar body of poetry is indeed a neat mystery. “Were any alliance / Is ...

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Story Time
05:10 Feb 10, 2024

Thank you, Michal. I can see how the "were" part was confusing. I simplified it a bit to make it clearer. Thank you so much for the close reading and I hope you keep leaning into poetry. It's been very rewarding for me.

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Hannah Lynn
03:39 Feb 06, 2024

Wow I enjoyed this a lot! It’s so different than I anything I have read here and that caught me by surprise. Impressive :)

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Story Time
05:57 Feb 06, 2024

Thank you so much, Hannah. Glad you enjoyed it.

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Alexis Araneta
09:40 Feb 05, 2024

After reading this powerful and very creative tale, well, I feel like perhaps I shouldn't submit to this week's contest anymore. Hahahaha ! Kidding. This is a sure winner here. Everything was impeccable -- the creative form, the rich imagery, the way you described the emotions. Brilliant. "Chewing on pot roast that tasted of submission" - What a line !

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Story Time
21:19 Feb 05, 2024

Thanks so much, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

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07:57 Feb 04, 2024

This was so beautiful! Well done! Really liked this, so powerful: "He came back On a Tuesday My mother made him pot roast And we all ate together As though nothing had happened"

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Story Time
07:38 Feb 05, 2024

Thank you so much, Melissa!

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Christy Morgan
00:02 Feb 04, 2024

Unique writing approach -- I love when a free flowing prose is employed with no rules or parameters, and it fits the narrative well. Enjoyed reading!!

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Story Time
06:23 Feb 04, 2024

Thank you so much, Christy!

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Mary Bendickson
23:39 Feb 03, 2024

The secrets that we keep...

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