The Pattern

This is the pattern:

Mothers
too-good
too-strict
just trying to protect us from
men
with broken glasses taped together by long
tales and compliments that steal
our sight.

This tale--
two girls
two men
two rooms

this is where the sheet rips
and the pattern is severed in
two paths,
the same truth.

(Why couldn't I save her?)

Ten years later
the gravity hits me hard
in the bathroom
brushing my teeth at my mirror-self
and feeling compassion
for the one staring back,
strong, unblinking, gaze
and wondering why I stopped
looking people in the eyes
and holding my head high
like I do
in the mirror.

And then I remembered
the exact moment
in the room
with the man
where that stopped
and all of this started.

Oh the legacy of a moment,
of a few words,
perhaps an offering,
but that robbed me of many things,
and not even close
to everything she lost
in the other room.

~~~

Our mothers are waiting.
When they find out their hands wring
(broken heart-strings)
they scream
that they will kill him.
My mom drives to his house
day after day
for a week
and sits in her car

waiting...

waiting...

too-good. 

~~~

This is the pattern:
Men, taking what they want
and disappearing.
And women
waiting...

Waiting...

and in the meantime,
weaving back together
the tattered patterns of our lives
into some semblance of wholeness.
Mending the tears,
tending to tears
flowing out like an endless river
of sorrow

while the violence rages on

and we wait.

~~~

(What are these silhouettes
that shape so much
of the landscape we live on
with their mining
and their walking away?)