endequalsbegin

a poem i wrote a few months ago. just found it again. i kinda like it.

I think she stole my voice along with your soul.

The backseat of your fathers
car held us both on the day
of your tenth birthday party,
only I dont remember you
being there. I was too absorbed
with the unsure honor
I was being granted. I was
the girlfriend. Your fathers
best friend filled in the
front passenger seat, a tall
Native American is how he
seemed. Hes dead now, I know,
a car crash, I think, and I am almost
certainly wrong about the origins
of his ancestry. And he may
not even have been there, that
could have been a different
time.

Confusion drew me from my
small thoughts when we pulled
into the parking lot, not five
minutes from my moms house.
The big dark depot store
squatted in front of us, and
I didnt want to go in. No
one moved, no one breathed.
She swims into the
memory then, like the
mermaid movie that was my
favorite, with her big red
hair. Her face was framed in
the front passenger seat
window, and your fathers
best friend disappears. She
is all I can see.
She becomes my existence
for that moment, as the
angry whispers swell to yelling.
She is like Ursula, ugly
and treacherous. I am forced to love her.