Harrison Birch
If you say “good morning,” he will look up
from his weeding, or whatever he is doing in
the fenced area of his front yard, look at you
as if he just caught you mid-squat in the dirt,
and turn his wrinkled nose away. If you knock
on his door to talk about his rusted Accord
blocking your driveway, you see his scowling
face in the window—his greeting, a middle finger.
He’s been known to throw things. The family next
door know not to say anything as they pass by
on the sidewalk; he will snarl at them, and nod
to Mr. Torkington, their pet Doberman.
His house smells like musty papers and
dog food. Scout troops are warned from
approaching his door, a girl fractured her
leg when he had chased her away from
his stoop with a rolled up newspaper.
Animal control makes annual inspections
of his house. One time a concerned neighbor,
startled by all the rabbits, called for a wellness
check. They came and took hundreds of
floppy-eared, snuffling rabbits away in crates,
while he hovered by the front door and sobbed.
Spring finds him kneeling in the fresh dirt of his yard
tilling the soil with a trowel, he spies a baby robin
gray and ugly, crying in loud braying cheeps
—sounds too loud for such a tiny body—he
uses the trowel to expose pink fleshy worms
in the muck and the baby bird hops closer,
dodging nimbly between each shower of dirt.
“You deserve better,” he says, clucking his tongue,
and scans the sky for more friends.
Reach for the stars.
A mother sings a lullaby
Night is nigh
The Child sleeps
Full of peace....
Knowing that angels
Keep watch through
Each passing hour.
A mother whispers
Into her little one's ear
You deserve better Dear
Reach for the stars....
Even aim for the moon
Follow the beat of your heart
There's no greater tune.
Better
Life is so unfair
I will not lie to you
People get broken
People get used
From love lost
Hearts shatter
It feels like
Nothing else matters
The world has been
So unfair to you
Leaving you down
All sad and blue
Now you've given up
You let yourself get hurt
But I care
For what it's worth
Hun,
I have to say
You deserve better
Both yesterday and today
Don't let them
Bring you down
Put on a smile
Lose that frown
Sacred Place
You deserve better
I wield my pen
polish your beauty
mirror your soul
coddle it on paper
You deserve better
I inscribe your scars
with angel’s breath
wrap you in loving words
meant to embrace
You deserve better
I understand your pain
bedeck in gauzy words
draw the butterscotch moon
to radiate on your face
You deserve better
My words breathe for you
to give you respite
erasing the smudges
that tarnish your life
You deserve better
I autograph a tranquil mind
expose you to a gossamer life
draw the inner art of you
let you find your sacred place.
Hospitalers
"Will you write something for me
where something nice happens?" the boy asks me.
"Something nice?"
He nods. "Everything you write is so serious."
He is ten years old, the son of a dear friend
who is a terrible parent. He comes to my house
very often, has for years, and does his
homework or reads books while I sit writing.
Sometimes I read to him what I have written,
sometimes he reads it on his own.
He's asked me what a clit was, because he read it
in something I wrote, what a speedball is.
We are unlikely friends, a grown man and
a precocious boy; if we go out - I often
take him with me when I don't feel like
cooking - we are always taken for
father and son. We favor each other,
as the ladies used to say.
His father is one of two people
who has literally saved my life,
but is now on his own downward
trajectory, he is a human Skylab.
I see the boy very often lately.
"Serious?"
"It's always drugs or weird girl problems."
He is not wrong.
"Something nice then?"
And he nods his golden-brown head.
At the very least, this child
should have that.
You deserve better, I almost say,
but it would be a betrayal of our
unspoken agreement never to mention
why he comes here, why we are friends,
why I am even alive.
He comes and looks over my shoulder
at the poem I am about to delete.
" 'Country and Western'?" he asks.
"It's only a title," I say, my finger hovering.
"Is it about music?" I shake my head.
He says again, "Write something nice for me,"
and trundles off to the bathroom.
A boy and a girl sit on the edge of a dock, dangling their feet into the warm waters of
a Minnesota lake, watching the summer sun disappear behind tall pine trees. They have only known each other for a few hours, and already the boy's arm is curlicues and swirls and whorls, painted in henna by the steady hand of the girl. His chest, his back are decorated too, and as she had painted him, she had told him the designs she was making, what they meant and symbolized.
And why those, he asked, pointing to a slithering vine-like line going up his side, and the girl smiled and tucked her tongue in the corner of her mouth to paint the leaves just so, and finally said, A vine is strong and tenacious.
And this? he asked, pointing to the cattail going up the underside of his left arm. A reed is supple and bends when it is wise to bend.
She tucks her blond hair behind her ear and tells him to lower himself into the water. He does, and when he comes out the henna is like filigree etched into his skin. He is breathless at the loveliness she has made upon him, and he looks at her, in wonder,
and says
The boy is back from wherever he has been
and is reading over my shoulder again.
I can feel beside me his warmth and smell
a scent of peanut butter. "What does the boy
say", he asks, looking up at me,
his eyes clear and unveiled, as if seeing
at last through a dense and frightening
fog. "He says, 'I don't deserve this'."
And I put my arm around the boy
I have no right to deserve
and he says, "Finally."
Odalisque
There's a place to hang a hammock
on the hill above your house.
Here we are free
and know each other to be beautiful.
It pains me to see you grow
up up and away
to see you suck in your stomach
and sit up straight under their gaze
- the boys' -
because you love it when they look at you.
And that's okay.
But don't let their eyes give you your value.
You're worth so much more.
Like when you sillywalk down the hillside
or sing loudly out of tune or when your face twists
because your mouth isn't wide enough
to let all your laughter out.
I come second to you, but I don't mind.
I've always sought out lights brighter than mine
in the hopes of illuminating something larger that I.
And so that I can hide.
But I can see where you broke,
where your spine snapped
from twisting back to please others
and the holes they left
and how you're insecure about the way
the tops of your thighs rub together.
Or the way you tiptoe around your mother.
There's a place to hang a hammock
on the hill above your house.
It's quiet here
and I hope you can see
you deserve so much better
than what they're giving you.
That Night
My dad and I had been sitting in the same spot for the past hour. Him sitting forward on the couch, with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Me, spread out on the arm chair, staring up at the ceiling.
At the beginning of the night my mother had been here sitting down with us at the dinner table, laughing and talking excitedly. Then she left, seeking some better adventure, trying to find some more excitement for her life.
Again.
I don’t know how he puts up with it, I’m her daughter and I can barely stand it. He married her, and just… why would he do that?
Out of the corner of my eye, I see his head raise from his hands, and I assume he’s looking at me, “She’ll be back.”
I stop staring at the ceiling to meet his gaze, “How do you know?”
“She always comes back.”
I cough and look away from him, unwilling to look him straight in the eyes anymore to see what he was thinking. My dad is very easy to read, once you stare into his eyes long enough. After another moment of silence I ask him, “You do know that you deserve better, right?”
He chuckles and says, “Trust me, I don’t.” And with that, he gets up and walks away while I sit here trying to figure out what he means. Trying to figure out why she always leaves and comes back. Just trying to make sense of this strange relationship between my parents that for whatever reason, they’re both okay with.
Who knows, maybe it will make sense to me one day.
Actually, scratch that, I hope this never makes sense to me.
A Gilded Cage
You deserve better than this, Tabby…
This thought kept echoing around in circles through Tabitha’s brain. She wasn’t sure how she was going to face her new reality, sentenced to a life of miserable luxury. She was only 21, and hadn’t experienced even a tenth of the things she had planned on.
She had dreams of exploration and beauty; now Amy, her best friend since kindergarten, was going to be taking their long-awaited backpacking tour of the U.S. without her. They had always planned on being together forever, best friends to the end.
That was before her father’s “arrangement” with the man he owed all that money to.
Her new husband was extremely wealthy, and he wasn’t horrid to look at. At first she was flattered--and then even a little excited--by the mystery that being a wife would be. She had moved to a beautiful new apartment, and was able to wear beautiful clothes … and she now hated every moment she spent there.
It was a velvet prison, and the man next to her was her warden now. This little trip to Switzerland, for example, was for him; she wouldn’t even be allowed to go shopping without an escort.
Lost in these dark thoughts, Tabby stared out the window at the clouds that covered the Atlantic Ocean, thousands of feet below. There was no way for her to know that her new husband, and this ‘wonderful’ new life, had only 480 seconds left, or that she would be spending the next seven weeks in a battle just to survive. No way to know, that was, until the sound from the planes engine stopped, and the nose took a sudden lurch downward…
(c) 2017 - dustygrein
For Your Abusement
The police were here again last night. He said he’d handle it, like he always does. After all, there was nothing to show, no damage done. I waited on the porch as the discussion went on inside without me.
Through the squeaking screen door a female cop emerged, joining me in my retreat. She put her hand on mine. I flinched at the touch and pulled back.
"Sorry," she said. "I should have known."
I waited, breathless, for the dismissal, but it never came. Instead, she continued.
"I've seen this so many times. Before you say anything, it is definitely not your fault, and you do deserve better. If you give me your hand, I'll take you to a shelter. They can help you there."
She reached out, but I held back. Help me. For what, a night? Maybe two? Then what? I'd be right back in this house and the cops would be called again, though this time it would be for a homicide.
"I'm fine," I lied. "Sorry to have troubled you."
Was it cowardice or self-preservation? I don't know, and I'm not sure it matters. Instead I wiped my eyes, plastered on a smile, and entered the house again, leaving my dignity out on the porch with the only person who seemed to care about it.
#deservebetter #challenge #domesticabuse #prose