stepmom
What is there to write? I'm not sure, and not sure why I insisted on using this slow and annoying laptop of all things, but here I am. I just want to feel something resembling writing coming off the tips of my fingers. I think of the weekend, all laid out before me with no real work that must be completed, and suddenly I realize, I could be writing. The thing that concerns me is my lack of subject, of inspiration in the last few years. Words don't call to me as they once did. I don't even seem to notice the interesting turns of phrase, or the compelling images that must surely surround me on a daily basis.Now my stepdaughter has moved in. I have pushed for this for a while, because I know deep down it is what is best for her. But still. I'm scared. I'm scared of what it will do to us as a family. How it will impact my relationship with J. How it will impact the relative harmony we've achieved in this house. She can be so volatile and unpredictable, like her mother. Why am I scare of a teenage girl with no self-confidence, no direction and no ambition? Hmmm….perhaps I just answered my own question.
I truly know that his family, now my family, could be my subject, but I don't know where to start. How to distill art from this mess is baffling to me. It seems too much, too soap opera, too over the top for fiction. I find myself wanting to capture moments, to pull it into poetry somehow, but I feel lost in how to accomplish that. It's as though I've lost the secret somehow--Used to be able to do this, and now--it just feels like I'm an eighty-year-old lady who was once a gymnast contemplating a back handspring.
I wonder at stepdaughter's feelings about all this. Surely, she must be scared to death. But she hides it so well. Of course, maybe she'd think the same of me. I doubt it's even occurred to her that I am scared. Why would I be? From her perspective, my life is orderly and makes sense. How could she possibly suspect that I don't know what I'm doing here in this role of stepmother, that I'm winging it every day, every hour, every minute, that I am simply pretending?
stepson
His hair
Burnished bronze
Glows
In lamplight warm and affectionate
Your fingers slide through its silkiness
His tender cheek pressed against your chest,
Thin body curled awkwardly–
Angular as a bird's–
Yet perfectly fitted into your side
Your breaths echo each other's
A rhythmic symmetry
You are complete
I watch from across the room
Spellbound
Like a traveler from a distant land
Seeing snow for the first time.
posted by lit lover at
10:01 AM
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