primary caregiver

(july 2013)


Step one of growing older in the presence of the elderly: observe how the giants of your childhood wither into frailty
Step two: begin to second guess every eccentricity
Is this what they meant by signs to look for?
When did she get so small?
How could she have ever forgotten my birthday?
Step three: dance around her with the nervousness reserved for the ill.
She will look at you with the resentment that can only come from those whom illness has only left shame and regret.
Step four: begin to hold her hand again.

It is one to thing to care for the senescent
And another to do it in the house they raised you in.

Re: Old Age

Day 8- Write a cinquain on a topic of your choice.

maybe

she lost all that

weight so you could get used

to seeing your giants shrink to

nothing.

In Your Old Age

Day 3- Find the nearest book (of any kind). Turn to page 8. Use the first ten full words on the page in a poem. You may use them in any order, anywhere in the poem.

Senescence is the great equaliser.
great men, average men,
men of faith, men of none
living life with the promise
that some of its secrets will be revealed
but all you will ever learn
are verbs like forgetting
and dying.

Upon Review

Day 2- Who was the last person you texted? Write a five-line poem to that person.

I cannot write about you.
Poetry reveals truths
And I cannot hear those truths
Without revealing hurts.
I still have not healed from your last wounds.

Bedtime Stories

I read to you because my mother read to me.

And in those moments I felt as loved and as safe as a strangely paranoid and anxious child could feel

-Certainly more safe than the rote prayers that my grandmother made me parrot back to her made me feel-

And for years

-long after I'd stopped remembering to pray-

I couldn't fall asleep without reading.

Diaspora Dysphoria

Look I write something! I'm actually trying to perform this for the One World show my school has every year. I just auditioned it today, so let's hope for the best <3

Still have to work of some of it, but most of it is here.

Diaspora Dysphoria

I am a child of diaspora.

Last name I have no ties to,

First name my mother heard on Sesame Street,

Names give me no solace.

My mama’s mama was a product of love soured

By a nationwide obsession with race and colour:

A story of a baby too brown

For anyone but her mother to love.

A story that comes back ‘round to me when they say,

‘Psst, t’ick sauce wit’ de nice hair.’

They call me dougla.

By the time I outgrew my obsession with bindis and tikas

And my one true dream to be bollywood dancer,

Classmates told me I was too proper to be black.

They call me dougla.

But ever so often I throw around mulatto

And try and forget the oppression behind it.

Two generations later, I have no ties to coco panyol

Other than passing mention.

The only name I have for this,

The only name I have for me,

Is confused.

At home they say, ‘dougla, what yuh mix wit’?’

But here they say black is black.

‘Are you ashamed?’

Am I ashamed?

Not of the blackness

Or the whiteness

Or the Indian-ness

Or the Syrian-ness

Or the whatever-else-it-have-ness.

Just confused.

Because things like race have always baffled me.

Because race implies someone must win.

Because when I look in the mirror

And I see the roundness of my nose,

The curliness of my hair,

The sharpness of my cheeks

And the brownness of my skin,

I am neither ashamed nor confused;

just euphoric.

mama doesn't want to grow old

mama doesn’t want to grow old.

bones breaking,

mouth drooling,

jaw slack,

some one to

clean you

change you

chew and swallow for you.

mama saw her mama

whither.

prisoner

of her feeble body,

jailed

by her failing mind.

a sliver

of a shadow

of her former self.

mama doesn’t want

to lose her mind

or be trapped

as her body

crumbles.

mama wants me

to cut her off

to unplug her

to give her the red pill

and release her.

but mama doesn’t

think about after

mama doesn’t

think about me.

because

when they ask

‘where’s your mama?’

i’ll just say,

‘mama?

mama’s dead.

i killed her.’