me and Lillie Mae

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  • Life
    • ,
  • Sadness

    me and Lillie Mae
    me and Lillie Mae
    abandoned child digging
    gently for reasons
    through a minefield of guilt an shame.
    dragging these grownup clothes around
    hangings so loose around my child  mind
    that I am scared I will trip.
    Why do they think that I am grownup?
    They think that I am funny
    but I cry everyday,
    for those who love me but don’t know me
    and, I keep digging through the mind field.
    I don’t want these thoughts
    I lay in bed that night
    at my parents place
    I hear my mother and father talking
    my mother is going into the hospital
    in a small town
    because she can’t control her thoughts
    my father doesn’t know what to do
    neither one got the help that they needed
    my father died bitter helpless and brilliant
    my mother died happy
    sitting in her chair holding her monthly pension check
    when an MI swiftly took her life
    she lay in the casket
    her face soft and gentle
    all the worry and sadness gone
    I looked down at this beautiful person
    a person I had only seen in an old picture
    when she was a beautiful young coed
    in her old yearbook
    I would stare at her picture
    stare at the young woman with the brilliant smile
    curly locks and bright eyes
    a woman that I never knew
    a woman that I never saw
    someone had written beneath her picture
    ‘to the sweetest person I’ve ever known’
    I looked down at my mother
    all the wrong had left
    all the sadness gone
    Goodbye Mom
    Abandoned child digging
    gently for reasons
    through a minefield of guilt and shame.
    Dragging grownup clothes around
    hangings so loose around my child  mind
    that I am scared I will trip.
    Why do they think that I am grownup?
    They think that I am funny
    but I cry everyday,
    for those who love me but don’t know me
    and, I keep digging through the mind field.
    I don’t want these thoughts
    I lay in bed that night
    at my parents place
    I hear my mother and father talking
    my mother is going into the hospital
    in a small town
    because she can’t control her thoughts
    my father doesn’t know what to do
    neither one got the help that they needed
    my father died bitter helpless and brilliant
    my mother died happy
    sitting in her chair holding her monthly pension check
    an MI swiftly took her life.
    She lay in the casket
    her face soft and gentle
    all the worry and sadness gone
    I looked down at this beautiful person
    a person I had only seen in an old picture
    when she was a beautiful young coed
    in her old yearbook.
    I would stare at her picture
    stare at the young woman with the brilliant smile
    curly locks and bright eyes
    a woman that I never knew
    a woman that I never saw.
    Someone had written beneath her picture
    ‘to the sweetest person I’ve ever known’
    I looked down at my mother
    all the wrong had left
    all the sadness gone
    Goodbye Mom

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    Teardrops commented on me and Lillie Mae

    02-13-2011

    Sometimes we do not get to chose how our lives will go . But in reading your work i know she would be truly proud of you . You have a gift and it brings warm and happiness to others . Marie
    Reply to Comment

    shallenemcgrath commented on me and Lillie Mae

    01-27-2011

    Wow two redheads commenting on the same poem- that has to be a record of some sort.
    Reply to Comment

    train64

    01/27/2011

    and to make it weirder i'm one!:---)Thanks so much for the comments..

    Redhead505 commented on me and Lillie Mae

    01-27-2011

    This one brings tears to my eyes. Again, I like the way you use or slightly alter a word or phrase that is commonly known to give it new meaning. In this case, "mindfield" vs. "minefield". Walking around in one's own mind is very similiar to walking through a minefield. Dangerous stuff for the unprepared.
    Reply to Comment

    train64

    01/27/2011

    Thanks for the comments and you already did one of my favors that i just asked......I wrote that several years ago while in therapy..Walking around in one's mind can indeed be dangerous..T64

    Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that's what the poet does.

    Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) U.S. poet.

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