Poetry Friday: Broken Memory

We all have things we regret in our life, scenes we'd replay if we could. I find that often the things that stick in my head like gummy label residue are fairly insignificant, not the big earth-shattering stuff people talk about. I don't regret feel stuck on major moral choices I've made, life direction selections or other headline type options. I can't let go of conversations where I said something I never should have to someone hurting, times when I missed an opportunity to be open with a person I loved and little fabulous jokes I should have shared when I thought of them. Maybe that makes me petty or maybe it just confirms that I'm a details person, but whichever it is...them's the facts.

Today for Poetry Friday I decided to work up a poem idea I've had simmering in my mind for ages. I've been slowly accumulating notes on this specific memory of a childhood argument with my little sister and working on trying to synthesize all the little pieces into a meaningful whole. I often remember the incident whenever I see broken glass. So, there were these poemy bits in my poetry file and then recently, I started reading this fabulous book on parenting and emotion and I felt like it brought the whole topic full circle. I've never been so-filled with hope about emotions and their place in the human experience...read it, you may find yourself welling up compassion for yourself, your parents, your children and all the other people around you who are feeling deeply and being shut down, shut out or pacified. Anyhow...enough from the soapbox.

Here's the poem, dedicated to you, Foxy and here's to healing!

Kid Sister

I regret that time I egged you on,

Taunting you from behind the window

Of the just-slammed kitchen door.

I should have stopped when I saw your color rise,

Saw my muted jeers inflate your rage

And fan it like a maverick breeze.

I never expected that gutsy crash

The slam of pain colliding with anger,

Window glass and your determined knuckles.

There was a blast of explosive shattering,

A war cry from your little, irate lungs and

A sudden, tinkling spray of jagged confetti.

I remember your fist flecked with blood and tears

A long, hard talking to and the sound of the

Clinking scrape as the broom erased the evidence.

I felt superiorly, that I had won because you’d felt

So deeply, been so seething with emotion that your anger

Had shattered into ten million glittering bits of public evidence.

I wish now, that I had been able to step through that window

Cup your chin inside my hands, look into your

Flaming eyes and feel the human, outrage in your soul.

Instead I slammed the kitchen door on your

Budding dignity and silenced your objection

Behind a window, not strong enough to contain it.

I am sorry now, does it still

Count if I am 20 years too late?

If you're a poetry lover, make sure to check out the round-up of other Poetry Friday participants at The Miss Rumphius Effect.