The women of my family
have tucked themselves away for
generations.
Here is the
difference between a man and a woman: my mother cried after my
father left.
Here is the
difference between a river and a stone: the stone cannot
change.
We opened kitchen drawers, threw out matches. Opened closets,
threw out lighters. Opened mouths, burned tongues.
My mother taught me to smile without teeth. She learned it from
her mother who learned it from her mother who’s husband
smacked her so hard she swore her daughters would feel it years
later.
They do, great-grandmother, they do.
The night my father left, I strung my voice from the cabinets
to the broom bristles to the air behind the stove, heavy with
cooled heat.
My mother pulled herself from the furniture and tore apart my
father’s pear tree, branch by branch.
I
look at the spindly trunk and pray for all the things we leave
behind.
Serotonin · 1 decade ago
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Source: http://wildflowerveins.tumblr.com/post/56396728642/silent-shoulders-and-crushed-fruit