(no subject)
last night, my uncle Casey, lips loosened by beer, confessed that he was the body in my Grandfather Ed's picture. They never had a full body shot of Ed, so he wore his dad's suit and wedding ring, took a picture with it on, and his father's head was photoshopped over his. mums the word.
last night, my cousin Maggie, my favorite person in the entire world and a place of solace to me in a place that's foreign and dumb as rocks, told me she had been raped when she was a child. and I cried so hard that my makeup smeared from my forehead to my chin and I could not breathe. and I climbed on top of her big body and we held each other. "there is so much poison in the world" she said and tears welled in her eyes (which is something so rare) "I would do anything for you. I would leave school if you asked, I would never sing another note, I would never pick up a pen."
I was so frightened by this completely real, vulnerable love that I had a panic attack and a breakdown. and for the first time in my life with the alcohol in my bloodstream and the endorphins pumping through my veins everything was Real. or as real as it'll ever get. fourteen degrees, standing outside a small house in a small college town, seeing the sun just cresting over the horizon...being with the one person you have always felt secure with and having them know that and feel it too....
that's real. That's family.
this poem is called "Waking up in Streator" and was written about my grandpa Ed way way back in the eighties, many years after my grandfather died. It was written by Lucien Stryk, a zen poet and a good family friend.
I am wakened by a poem
I have never heard, in
a town never visited
deep in Illinois. Last
night, due to read poems
500 smiles away - now
shaggy frm a dream - I
remember a friend, long dead,
who grew up in Streator,
played football, talked tough,
scorning all dreamers.
Yet one night, late,
loosened by beer, confessed
he'd once written a poem
last night, my cousin Maggie, my favorite person in the entire world and a place of solace to me in a place that's foreign and dumb as rocks, told me she had been raped when she was a child. and I cried so hard that my makeup smeared from my forehead to my chin and I could not breathe. and I climbed on top of her big body and we held each other. "there is so much poison in the world" she said and tears welled in her eyes (which is something so rare) "I would do anything for you. I would leave school if you asked, I would never sing another note, I would never pick up a pen."
I was so frightened by this completely real, vulnerable love that I had a panic attack and a breakdown. and for the first time in my life with the alcohol in my bloodstream and the endorphins pumping through my veins everything was Real. or as real as it'll ever get. fourteen degrees, standing outside a small house in a small college town, seeing the sun just cresting over the horizon...being with the one person you have always felt secure with and having them know that and feel it too....
that's real. That's family.
this poem is called "Waking up in Streator" and was written about my grandpa Ed way way back in the eighties, many years after my grandfather died. It was written by Lucien Stryk, a zen poet and a good family friend.
I am wakened by a poem
I have never heard, in
a town never visited
deep in Illinois. Last
night, due to read poems
500 smiles away - now
shaggy frm a dream - I
remember a friend, long dead,
who grew up in Streator,
played football, talked tough,
scorning all dreamers.
Yet one night, late,
loosened by beer, confessed
he'd once written a poem