Week 2: Vampire Load

[definitelyodette]

Do you remember
five summers ago?
When my mother, her husband, my sister
and my brother
all told you
about the kind of person I am?
About who I am?

And you laughed,
you scoffed.

She takes charge, they said.
She's loud, they said.
Particular, even bossy.
She's a lot.
They said.
But you'll never need a leader
if she's around.

How can your own family
not even know you?
you asked.

The kids agreed.

That's not like mom at all,
they said.
She's easy going.
She doesn't make choices.
She goes with the flow.
She's the opposite of
everything
you said.

And I agreed with you, with the kids.
I knew who I was.
Agreeable,
easy to be with,
always optimistic, nice, capable, positive

in the face of,
especially in the face of,
all that you were.

But,
turns out,
none of us knew the truth.

All the vigilance,
the preemptive problem-solving,
the desperate absorption of
the negativity
that seemed
always to be around us
and many times
aimed at me...
the swallowing of insults,
or jokes,
the rerouting of snipes,
or irritation,
the mitigation of mood,
of fallout,
the putting everything back together,

the papering over of
the empty hole at the core,
the reconstruction of the ever flimsier house
atop the rotting wood,

turns out,

carrying that load
day in and out
for twenty years

sucked me dry.

Comments

[gardeningatnight]

This was structured really nicely -- it has a movement and evolution from the beginning to the end that leaves with a strong feeling of being fed up, and the brevity of the final line also has a sense of finality that suggests that this phase is over.

I also really connected with the idea of the two different families (the ones you grew up with, vs. the ones who met you later in life) see completely different people. But especially with the idea that the person that your parents and siblings saw is probably a fundamental version of you -- the you that you were before the life sucked you dry. I've told myself for a while that I'm tired and boring... but if I look back to my youth, I was never boring and only tired because I was doing so many things.

[humanbeansradio]

Adaptation as a personality is... my middle name. Well done.

[kandigurl]

Beautiful, heartbreaking.

[muchtooarrogant]

The dichotomy was fascinating here. How both sides are convinced they know the true person, and how, to some extent, they're both right and both wrong. Great Work.
Dan

[n3m3sis43]

This is so relatable. We aren't meant to be carrying such heavy loads. I hope you find your way back, friend. I know you can.

[bsgsix]

The flow of this is really wonderful - and the final four lines really flesh this out entirely. It's all so relatable - the vigilance, the problem-solving, everything that you mentioned. Carrying that drains a person. How could it not?

This is wonderful. Truly. <3

[halfshellvenus]

Particular, even bossy.
She's a lot.
This is a very hard thing to hear from your family, and I can see how you might bend over backwards to prove yourself different from that for someone who doesn't carry that baggage in their view of you.

But the danger is bending too far. For love alone, it's hard not to do that. And that makes it harder to see when you shouldn't keep doing that.

It sounds as if your marriage ended, and that the change was a good thing for you.

[millysdaughter]

this makes me weep

[ofearthandstars]

I really like that you are able to convey so much in so few words here - a lifetime of feelings and frustrations piled up, with the narrator at the end disclosing their self-awareness of the emptiness and exhaustion that all of these pressures have wrought.

[lapis_lazuli615]

As an eldest daughter, and late diagnosed AuDHD, I feel this - every line of it.

[krispykritter]

This is very sad. I can relate to biological family not seeing me the same way as my family of choice. Bio family was the one who tried to suck the life from me. Nicely done.

[imafarmgirl]

This is sad. I like it because it goes several places before coming to its end. It's good.

[niquildrvr]

Oh, I love a bit of poetry that carries me through to a gut punch of an understanding at the close. Really well done.

[murielle]

As we used to say, back at in the day, heavy.
This is heavy with truth. So much truth.

❤❤❤

[wolfden]

Well done!

[scribblesinblue]

This is painfully familiar and so well-described. Thank you.

[troof_therry]

Being a mother like this definitely would take a toll. Comparing rerouting negative energy to irrigation is so apt. Excellent poem.

[alycewilson]

This made me think of somebody I knew whose personality was virtually obliterated while he was in a toxic marriage. Now that he's free of it, he's becoming himself again, and it was amazing to see.