black rotary telephone on white surface

Conversation Nightmare

Why do you not go back 
To where you belong?
Why don't you ask family?
Unfair laws, jail, racists,
Didn't want to die
Had to protect the babies. 
I didn't walk through fire
And brimstone to get myself
Out of Hades just to face this
Questioning, on and on. 
You would think they would 
Find their ignorance embarrassing
But no...they don't. 
Get a lawyer, go to court!
Get a divorce! Forget
Those charges that you caught.
It doesn't seem right?
Just fight. You are right
So you have to win!
Justice was not built on right
And wrong, 
But how much money and 
Power you can throw at it
And for how long. 
I have neither. 
I am bound to lose
But you judge me
Without walking a single
Day in my fucking shoes?
And lose, and never see 
My boy again? And be thrown
Out of my home? And lose
Everything I fought to get?
Whatever lawyer I can get
He can pay for double.
That man could pay
For Satan himself
To squeeze himself
Out of trouble. 
Didn't mean to trigger you
You are being so unreasonable.
Why are you so angry?
Why are you not more pliable.
The last time a fist
Drove itself into my face
I swore on my own
Bloody murder I would
Not allow myself to face
This injust justice
This sham of pretense
And show but still I can
See, you just want me
to up and go. 
I know how much 
I am wanted,
What else do you want 
me to know?
That you think I was 
Wrong.
That you would have done
Better?
That I failed to perform
Well enough in very 
Stormy weather?
Why don't I?
Why didn't I?
Justify.
Defend. 
Identify the problems
Fight systems in order to mend. 
Survive. Thrive. Pay. 
Do it with a smile on my face. 
In the end I know I don't hold
A single fucking ace. 

I never write notes or explanations on any of my poetry, but as I am sitting here with tears pouring down my face, after an incredibly traumatic conversation with someone who was meant to be ‘helping me’ and that I am forced to have contact with, I suppose I will point out that as much as I wish it was over…it ain’t over. It won’t ever be over. And I am meant to do this clean and sober and with a smile on my face. Pitching stories, making a career, being functional and polite and decent year after year. I think people mistook me for some one I am not.

“You are strong. You are strong.” I am sick of hearing it. I am not fucking strong. I love. That is it. That is all. I love. I love my son and I can’t bear to see him struggle, or worse…not see him at all. I lost too much already. I am trying to keep the wheels on the bus, but it is spiraling out of control. I don’t see how I am going to do any of this at all.

I’m trying to force the tears back down. I have heard for years and years, “don’t let the kid see you cry” like I am some kind of automaton, some kind of inhuman freak that is able to control myself absolutely for years on end. I am not. I am not even close. I am a raging ball of emotion and pain and longing and disappointment and loneliness. I suppose it will be alright. Or it won’t. It will be alright, or else I will have to kiss the Boy goodbye and know I failed utterly to win even enough time with him. I so wanted to succeed. I so wanted to protect him. I desperately wanted to stay close to him. It was all a pipe dream. A vacation.

I guess we are out of here in September. And not only that the very people I was relying on to even understand what happened to me, seem to not give a flying fuck at best, and at worse are terribly hurtful and offensive.

Asking an undocumented person, who became undocumented because they are fleeing DV, why don’t they just ‘go home’ when the situation and dangers have been explained time and time again, is not just insensitive, it is cruel. My mistake is I expect kindness from others as I give to them.

Detroit, over and out. Stay safe out there, it is a wicked world.

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