the rotten seeds you planted inside me
somehow bore fruit
my skin cracks and peels
like tight, relenting earth
lets loose the green,
razor-leafed vines
whoÂ’s petals
are the tear shaped drops
of blood i leave behind
with every tearing step.

mother,
sweet mother
after all these gardens
i have run through
trying to escape from you
your green thumb
still finds it way
to where it hurts the most.

"good gardening requires great balance"

rows dug up in lines like soldiers
healthy seeds and fertilizer
sharpened, well oiled shears
tools to cut away and sever
imperfection
disease
(and most importantly)
anything that ruins
your carefully planned
and delicately choreographed
balance.

"because Jesus was too good to judge,
i must sacrifice myself
and commit that sin in his name"

and he could not have chosen a better avatar-
with grace and balance- no mercy
you applied twin swords to your chosen one
cutting away tarnished leaf,
imperfect twigs
until i was perfect
(just like you)
a bare and barren
leafless tree
choking on vines
in a fading garden
(that even Jesus
has forgotten)

09/26/2001

Author's Note: I am honored that 'the beautiful way' has been selected by the editors of The Swamp for the November Issue's ExperiMental Department. Thank you Megan & Uncle Pete!

If the poems in the ‘broken skin’ cycle were put into any kind of order, ‘the beautiful way’ would be the first one in the set. The whole grouping is meant for poems that tell the stories of my tattoos- either directly or indirectly. This is the only poem i’ve written directly addressed to my mother, even though i’d be a liar if i said anything that implied that there’s a single word i’ve ever written that hasn’t been directly affected by her guiding hands. Update: I have since created a new folder, {break/fast}, which groups together several poems by subject. this poem is still part of {broken skin}, and {mother's salt} is still part of the fractured {quanta} cycle, but I felt better justice was done grouping them together with {i beg you} under {break/fast}.

How do you describe a woman like her? I delete all attempts to do so. My brother- he’s sitting in a jail cell right now- won’t talk about her. And to think that my father bears so much of the responsibility for it- for all his love and faith he couldn’t have changed a thing. I wish i could explain it to him, but he never learned that language, and i can only speak a few phrases of it. It’s tattoo- permanent. You could burn me away and the ink would remain. Stains.

And the most f*ed up part of it all is that i miss it. i know my brother does to. Imagine having a living, breathing excuse to not have to hold anything back. Imagine being able to cut as deep as you wanted to and not feeling any guilt or reservation about it, because Hell is just a big-yellow-school-bus-ride-home away. Imagine swinging as hard as you can over barely-any-provocation-at-all because it doesn’t matter anyway- the belt is waiting for you when you get home regardless - and the whole world is at your mercy just like you are at her’s.

Funny thing is, she doesn’t garden at all. Whole house full of plastic fronds if anything at all. She lives in a condo- a refurbished boarding school for girls- paid for by my father’s money- which i used to drive by every day on my way to work- the irony still kills.

What can i say about her? Only time i saw my ex sarah really- i’m not sure i have the word for it- shaken(?)-concerned(?)- was after meeting her. She told me really calmly that she never wanted to see her again, and made me promise that our children would never meet her. That was an easy promise to make. She apologized to me- she thought that i had exaggerated in describing that woman. They had been around each other for less than five minutes.

What if my mother read this? She’d feel hurt- she’d say i had been brainwashed to hate her. I don’t hate her. In fact, it takes a lot of effort on my part to get past the numbness. It’s all dream-stuff now, dreams that i don’t have anymore. And i’m all the less for it.

Posted on 09/26/2001
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