The Echoes of My Past
The echoes of my past come
as a rumbling noise or a murmur
reminding me what I had gone through
and how I got to where I am now.
The twirls, the turns, the detours,
the deviations I took in encountering
dead ends, deep pits, steep mountains
that I had to climb out or up in forms
of heartbreaks, separations, hardships, losses.
I used to compare my life to people
around me and people I know.
I came across too much juxtaposition,
and the effects were too contrasting.
I have two mothers, they are sisters.
The one, who raised me and the biological one.
Although, they came from the same family.
one was loving and the other is indifferent.
At fourteen, the one, who raised me left
and I stayed with two families with contrasting values.
Heartbroken, I was also pulled and pushed in the middle;
however, they did not affect my two brothers.
I felt not belonging to either of these families,
an outsider wanting to be on my own.
So I married young and had two children;
but I also felt not belonging to my new family.
Love is giving, understanding, sharing;
but love to him was owning, controlling me.
The continuous emotional, as well as physical
toll wiped out my trust, respect and feelings.
I took the whole responsibility to raise
my two children in exchange of my freedom.
I rather be a single parent than staying
married in a dysfunctional family.
My biological mother asked me why
and told me what would other people say.
She cared for their opinions or judgments
instead of offering support or standing by me.
I don’t care about the opinions of other people.
I also don’t understand why some women stay
in abusive relationships and think they could change
their husbands, men or significant others.
I remarried and had two more children.
Our sixteen years was good in the beginning,
as most relationships are, and was promising.
However, the pressure of his business drove
him to drink and the more he depended
on alcohol, the more he neglected the business.
His alcoholism and the financial stress in keeping
the business were destroying our family as well as
affecting me mentally, emotionally and financially.
Although I loved him and I still do, I chose my sanity.
I got the house; however, I had to take care
of all the financial and legal matters, continue
the mortgage payments and raise my two
younger children on my own with the older ones.
I worked two jobs to make ends meet
while suffering from depression caused
by the financial losses and the legal issues
from his business that I had to resolve
and managed the house and the children.
I became the mother and the father.
Some women closed to me used to call me
to complain about their husbands and asked
what to do. I told them, I did not have the answer
and to seek professional help like I did.
These women had too much anger,
frustration, disappointment, regrets.
They were depressed; yet rejected
professional help because of the stigma
of seeing a psychiatrist or psychologist.
They rather suffer from desperation
and I prefer keeping my mental health.
They stay in a dysfunctional family,
living in conflicts, denial, strife
and worrying what other people will say
or think, if they separate or divorce.
Neither could I stay in an abusive relationship
nor for love in a dysfunctional atmosphere.
I rather be free and that’s the way it has been.
Maybe love will find me someday or its already
in front of me and I’m hesitant to let it in.
Before when the echoes of my past came,
I heard them like thunder, rolling, loud.
Deafening me, leaving me speechless.
Now, when these echoes come, I still hear
rumbling noise; but softer, like a murmur,
leaving me with a smile and sense of well-being.
11/22/20 Silent One Juxtaposition Poetry
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