you stole from me to feed yourself
and I found my voice amongst the scraps
*
you handed my body back to me
I opened the coffin
and you whispered take care of yourself
*
you observed me
and said to yourself
I’ll get my life back
*
you warmed her body
extracted from her
and she’d never comprehend
that she lost everything to you
until the cold came back
*
a child lost in toilet water
a sibling lost in the sewers
*
you relive the day that he died
you still can’t get to the bottom of things
*
you pointed all your fingers
but never looked closer
close enough
*
you never asked yourself
what have I done?
*
you carry a rage with you
that you could never release
never send back to its origins
nothing had ever been resolved
and you unleashed it on your children
*
rage is a subject
that replaced my father’s name
*
and I thought it was about us
*
my father carries ghosts in his head
the one that paralysed him the most is his own
*
they threatened him with it
and all he ever did was not die
*
I follow my father’s muted footsteps
*
silence is a cowardly blanket
sinking into the truth
stuffing apertures
*
the past leaks from my father’s pores
*
threats blowing on my father’s neck
contaminated children
I feel death close to home
*
my father’s rage is older than he is
unburied bombs, intact, from unforgotten wars
*
my father knows what money can do
he knows that money stands above humanity
he knows that money kills
*
he never made it out of the co-dependency
*
my father speaks with his ghosts
when he looks at me
and I live in a world
that I can’t see, can’t fathom
*
when reality kills,
art resuscitates.
Croque-Melpomene 