Jess Marlo Poet Free verse

Remembering, part one

Dad's cutting close to the edge of the road.
I wanna tell him,
But I won't.
The passenger side tire dives into the gravel, 
It's Nova Scotia and the shoulders are low. 
Dad can't pull the car back up onto the road. 
Aim for the rhubarb, dad.
There's a bottle of bushmills between his knees. 

Mum ran out of the house crying, 
Dad chased her outside. 
My sister looked at me and said 
"She runs as fast as the dog!" 
My sister wasn't as worried as I was, she was actually impressed.
But I've never seen mum run from him. 
Mum came back inside and shut herself in the bathroom, crying. 
Her arm was broken. 
I don't know what happened. 
Dad said she tripped on a Tire and she should have seen it coming. 
I don't believe him. 

Jasmine is standing in my room. 
It's 3am.
She tells me to turn on the light. 
I turn it on, and she is just standing there, pointing at the window. 
She tells me she doesn't feel in control of her moving. 
I believe her.
She turns and walks into my parents room, into their closet, and stands with her face to the wall. 
She tells me she was standing in the basement pointing at the furnace for 3 hours. 
Jasmine is having a psychotic break.
She is 15. She never went back to school. 

Rhiannon is angry. 
I haven't seen her leave her room, except to go to school occasionally, in months. 
I think someone should check on her, 
But I won't do it. 
Rhiannon hates me. 
I know that. 

I am struggling.
I found an island, 
My bedroom. 
I lined the walls with sheet music and memories; 
Ticket stubs, the timer from a microwave I blew up with my friends, paintings, drawings, drift wood, programmes from every concert I played in. 
It was so ugly, 
And it made me happy. 
It reminds me of my family. 
We are so ugly.
But they made me happy. 

I am blindsided.
I'm sitting in the car. 
Mums lost a lot of weight.
I know she's sick. 
We're sitting in the 20 minute loading zone at the mall. 
Her legs are swollen; 
She takes a deep breath and says 
"The doctor says my cancer is getting worse". 
I said;
"You have cancer?"

Dad is working a lot. 
He gets angry that chemo isn't covered by OHIP,
He's mad that Trillium wouldn't take my mums case.
Mum doesn't move around much anymore. 
They're giving her 2 chemo injections a week,
And it's killing her just enough that she stays alive. 
Mum cries a lot.
She says she doesn't care if she lives or dies.
I roll her joints, I play her songs on my guitar. 
I can't play her a way out of this, though.

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