Dear D-
You’re breaking me
I said it only once when you were three
on fire with temper throwing punches
while flinging yourself into the other side
of a door which I held closed with my body
as I slipped down the rabbit hole of
despair some mothers know well when the
force of their love is not enough to save
a child from their own nature.
I hope you’ll forgive that door, closed
to protect us both, though your loneliness,
like mine springs, in part, I suspect, from rooms
we were sent to contemplate the least attractive
aspects of our character, snuff fire and re-boot
for the better good of all. I wanted
perfection once, to know all the right angles
and raise you wiser, but found out soon
enough love is in the breakdown and recovery,
distances in inches, all the fallible miles we travel
From I’m sorry. To I think we’ll be ok.
Love,
M
Early Morning Poems 