When I was young my parents said,
"pick your battles as your boogiemen
and for God's sake do it in private!
on account of your deviated septum.

What?
is IT - you ask?;
If you don't know by now
you're too young to ask
go to room
and think about it!

I listened
to the party's vibrate
the walls soppy "My Girl" Temptations
and afterwards their arguments
sometimes left gaping holes
so worse for the wear I couldn't stand them!
or at least that's what I remember
"evolving from what went before"
a wicked rum punch
with an upswing like Dizzy Gillespie.

I was adamant
I would NOT
let them get to me!
cry puke piss myself get high or get
DOWN TONIGHT!
take your pick;
you know how that goes.

Who?
are THEM - you ask?
Do walls have
EYES?
If you don't know by now
you're not listening!
enough with the forty questions!

When I was a teenager
and couldn't sleep for all the boogiemen
bouncing off glass housing
I'd revert to a recipe in my childhood from the infamous Dr. Seuss;
plug two fingers into my head
and "with eyes shut tight"
we "unthunk the Glunk" together
picking out smiles from fuzzy fir
thinking we were the only munchkins in the world
that could hear them!
humming "I want a brand new pair of rollerskates."

Can you imagine!!!????
earbuds hadn't been invented then
nor had the Apple ipatch;
You with me?

When you're up late at night
with your fists in a start
the hairball in your craw
pumped up on adrenaline
so fucking done with all the shit you've been dealt
in a strange place a strange bed orderlies holding you down
performing an emergency tonsillectomy on a gorilla
as if it had never been done before -
DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And if you take that
dare
keep feeding it!
cheeks as plump as when you were three years old;
let it hold you in its arms and win-some lose-some
sing for you a lullaby
listening to the sound of your breathing
as if you were the only person in the world
it was made for -
the most beautiful music there is.

Terrified one day it might stop
that's how I felt with you my son
when your Father left us when you were so very little
and your throat swelled up with such a lump
no dose of penicillin were the cure-all;
we are one and the same
"rocking back and forth,
back and forth very slowly"
rereading Robert Munsch
and because of this and because of him
and because of you - I will never feel alone
and though you too may soon move out on your own
pick your anesthetics as your instruments -
we can't chose our parents!
"As long as I'm living, my baby you'll be."

11/14/2013

Author's Note: Robert Munsch wrote the top selling children's book "I love You Forever". He first studied as a Jesuit priest, and when that didn't suit him worked in pre-schools telling stories - ultimately putting pen to paper. He lives in Canada and was awarded a member of the Order of Canada, and a star in Canada's Walk of Fame. He talks openly about his bi-polar disorder and was recently diagnosed as obsessive-compulsive and manic-depressive (I just researched this to my Wikipedia surprise).

I often read the story "Love You Forever" to my son when things were tough. My husband had a mental disorder, and abandoned us when our son was only a year old. He never returned, and committed suicide in 2010.

The story starts: :
"A mother held her new baby and very slowly rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
And while she held him, she sang: I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living my baby you'll be.



The quote "evolving from what went before" is an excerpt from a beauty - Dizzy Gillespie. I'll give you more on him in the footnotes of another poem.

Posted on 11/14/2013
Copyright © 2025 Elizabeth Shaw