Box of Ashes
Perhaps if you had raised me
rather than leaving me
with your mean and spiteful mother,
who became my vacant headed
and befuddled grandmother,
who offered no comfort
but a roof over my head,
all the food I could gorge myself on
rather than teach me
what to do with my emotions,
who created a monster
by giving him a lavish lifestyle,
gilded his cage,
filled his cell with
all the treasures a boy desired
sent him into the world
with no self-control
my youth became as worthless
as a box of ashes
A mother to me,
Is just an irritating, annoying stranger
who tried to discipline me
on the random, rare occasions
you came to see me
Why are you here?
You knew more about the goings on
of all the bars in Syracuse
Than what was going on
inside your lonely son’s mind
only a few miles away
as he tried to make sense of
his life as he grew
Perhaps if I had a real mother
I wouldn’t be a convicted felon,
drug abuser,
thief,
money waster,
whore monger,
liar,
calculating predator,
accomplished actor,
so accomplished
he doesn’t even know who he is,
who’s been trying
to figure it out
by thrashing around
and flagellating in his environment
all these years
until he becomes
just another box of ashes
Out with some friends
Downtown one night
I came upon you loaded
As you sat with your friends
At a table in front of Quigley’s
and you did not know
I was standing
in front of you
mere feet away
Where were your “friends”
that you spent so much time with,
all these years
who you abandoned me for
so you could have companions
to drown yourself in alcohol
and talk about petty, mundane events
Where were they
when you asphyxiated from your asthma
by yourself in your apartment
these people just as worthless
as a box of ashes
Left behind a nine year old crippled dog,
that I used to watch you baby more
than you ever did to me,
another abandoned thing
for someone else to take care of
did you get him
to fill some emptiness inside
The same emptiness
that became my entire life?
Left me with
your belongings that you
compulsively accumulated
over the years
that I had to sell for pennies,
donate to the rescue mission,
take to your mother’s apartment
so she could live amongst this debris
so we wouldn’t get stuck with paying for
another month’s rent for yours
because I already had
the credit card debt to cremate you
and now a box of ashes to dispose of.
It is so easy for me to tell a woman
I love her with straight face
This word means nothing to me,
it is merely a tool
that has it’s proper uses
for certain occasions
When I was a boy
Someone used to speak
this foreign word to me
then turn around and leave
When you were barely out the door
your mother would tell me
what a horrible person you were
because I didn’t know you
I didn’t know
what to believe.
When your mother passes away
Some years from now
Leaving me the last
Surviving member
of the family
That box of ashes
Will finally get scattered
By seagulls and rodents
Searching for sustenance
In some landfill somewhere.
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