No one in this family
Ever asks anyone else
A question,
All they know how to do
Is talk at each other,
Professing to understand everything
Without possessing any information
Beyond their own
Narrow notions.
Should anyone speak up,
Share his or her own point of view,
Disrupt the centuries of
Toxic patterns,
They’ll be immediately
Ostracized.
Nobody talks about anything
Around here,
It’s not allowed.
Follow the rules
Without questioning,
Keep your thoughts to yourself,
Set aside any critical thinking.
A sullen figure sits in a chair
Devising random ways of
Imposing arbitrary whims
That never keep him safe.
He says goodbye
For the last time,
Swallowing the anguish,
As he was taught to do.
Too many farewells,
A scarcity of hellos,
Don the sadness-quelling
Stifling suit of armor.
A feeling too many
For this kingdom,
Such things are
Not welcome.
He interrupts his pronouncements
About her career to
Ask his thirty-five-year-old daughter,
With a puzzled look on his face,
“What do you do?”
It’s never been very important
In this family to think beyond
One’s own ego and
Care about what
Anyone else is doing,
That would require
Listening to someone else’s story,
Letting go for just a moment of
The need to control everything,
Command the stage.
No light emanating
From his eyes,
A rigid demeanor
Developed in childhood
When the glow was
Beat out of him by
People proclaiming virtue
While practicing terror.
Devoid of love,
He coldly leads his adherents
Into the abyss.
Palpable anger in her countenance,
She addresses the camera
With an intensity reaped from
Incessant childhood horror.
Wrapped in a tailored suit,
She hawks the latest rip-off
With no remorse,
A polished peddler of misinformation,
Negligently representing the
Banal and dangerous,
Selling herself for a dollar and
A misguided sense of power.
Unplanned encounter
In a store parking lot,
She averts her eyes,
Changes direction,
Intentional shunning,
Everything she heard
Recited in her family
Reverberating inside,
Programming complete,
Total indoctrination,
Unquestioning allegiance,
Accepting lies as truth,
Poisoned.
Another letter arrives, and
With it a reminder of
The unrelated path I’m on.
No longer an unwitting participant
In a skewed game of
Manipulation and belittlement.
The demands of the past
Attempt to weaken my resolve
But fail to succeed.
Trying to make
Sense of it,
No answers forthcoming.
Another mind,
Impossible to decipher
Without help.
Silence,
Absence of
Understanding.
