The Poetry Marathon

Hour 23: The Past I to III

I

How does one begin to talk about the past?

Come in and take off your shoes

Don’t step on anything delicate

There’s lots of that round here

 

II

My mouth is broken

It has been for quite some time

Sometime I was

                 Trespassed

                 Transgressed

And you can’t put back together

                  A trashed China doll

                  A broken crystal glass

                  A shattered snow globe

                  To the way it was before

Restore it

                   It cannot be returned

Instead it becomes a new object

Jagged edges and fangs

For cutting

                On accident, on purpose

 

III

It was not pleasant.

That’s okay

It hurt too much.

That’s okay

Dandelion girls, it’s okay now.

Pavement kicker

Dirt digger

Boy kisser

Come on home

What a mess it was.

That’s okay

We made mistakes.

That’s okay, too

Can’t stay all day in the cold.

Alive

If I could choose one word to describe her

Free

With unbound locks haloing her head

Undaunted

By the pressures of society

Strong

With a heart scarred but unbroken

Alive

Los Angeles Native

When I was five, I loved to ride my skateboard
when I was six, it was my bike
when I was seven it was roller skates.

I loved to mow yards and make money
My friends and I used to put on plays
My dad would hag blankets around the porch
and set up chairs in the yard
We charged a nickel admission
and my mom made Kool-Aid and cookies
for an intermission snack

We had two olive trees in the front yard
I loved to climb them. My dad
had to rescue me once.

We had lemon and lime trees,
orange trees and an avocado orchard behind us
It wasn’t ours, but I used to sneak over the wall
and get some.

I remember the elderly man down the street
used to come pick our figs and bring me and my brother
candy for letting him pick them. I think his wife
made fig preserves.

We lived in Los Angeles a block away
from the Los Angeles River.
We weren’t supposed to ride our bikes
in the river beds…but we did.

Nature

Birds chirp in conversations loudly,

they sound as if mornings are their most favorite time of the day

the grassy fields and flowers move as if they are dancing in the sunlight

The sun graciously swaddles the earth while the clouds puff like cotton candy

the city is beginning to wake

12. Strawberries

 

Strawberries are found in her dreams in her earliest memory on the kitchen table, in the California setting, next to her mom.

A strawberry shortcake scented doll was her only friend when her parents left her for only one night with the man their friend and his English wife.

She only remembers the man who watched  the football game on the screen in the dark and alone like she felt so long ago only two.

No brother to call her own as yet, only strawberries to comfort her.

 

All rights reserved copyright (c) 2019 Natasha Vanover

They Wait In Peace

I envy

those who wait in peace

no troubled sleep,

restless hours

through these waiting years

guiltless they pretend

innocence will save them

when the end is nigh

and evil reigns supreme

 

Insanity Took Me – The Story of My Childhood

Section 1 – Zero to Three

Those were the days

When my mother was alive

I thrived

Like never again.

There was love

And hugs

Peeled grapes

With paté sandwiches.

Section 2 – Three to Six

Insanity took me

Not within me, but without.

A crazy man who,

Paid to make me cry

Never wondered why

He was so sad.

Section 3 – Seven to Eleven

I remembered Mama’s name

At the end of school one day

And so, we had to move

All my fault, he said to me

Slapped into eternity,

This devil at my side,

Bruised my legs

Then to jail he did ride.

Section 4 – Twelve to Fourteen

All for acting was my life

Despite the fear, the pain

The strife

Of wealth pretend, did they.

Much to my dismay

The rode upon my back

Empathy their greatest lack.

Section 5 –High School

Both my loves they hated so

Acting, and a man from

Over there

In the pear.

But what did I care.

They were crazy!

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13. Strawberries to be continued…

She was left with an impression.

She made the strawberry association

With all that was good

Like in the month she was born in

Close proximity to Mexico and California

Fresh and ripe like her place of birth.

Also like her brother

Who sounded like strawberries when he spoke

Connecting her to her mother

Sweet and decadent as grapes

Closely related to her fathers favorite  berry as well

The rasberry.,,,

For this reason

Strawberries would always hold

A special place in her heart.

 

All rights reserved copyright (c) 2019 Natasha Vanover

Dear Depression

Dear depression,

You fucking suck

I cannot count the number of casualties
I cannot even quantify the collateral damage
I cannot begin to add up the lost years
I cannot even fathom the billable hours
I cannot sift through the pills and treatments
I cannot properly express in any language
Just how terrible you are

You steal, maim, intimidate, and crush
You wrap your tendrils around hearts and minds
You keep people from seeing the truth
You twist sentences spoken in kindness into barbs
You use every dirty trick

Cancer can be excised
Infection medicated
Wounds cauterized

But you, are like a fungus
Crawling and invading and seeping in
An intelligent parasite slowly feeding on its host
Hiding in places no surgeon would dare go

I have lost good friends to you
I have lost heroes to you
I have lost years to you
I have lost good times with good people to you

In short, you are just the worst