Divorce

My memory is failing me...Dementia?

My name? I remember on a good day.

What day is it?

I remember--Dreams of building a cottage. Dreams of a car. Dreams of a full set of encyclopedias...Mandate to go to college...

I must study hard, go to university, get a good job, save money...This was the formula for wealth. It's all a lie!

Family arguments and entanglements--Memories I cannot rinse from my mind. My nappy hair is straitened and burned with the sizzling ironing come made to glide with Royal Crown Petroleum Jelly. My right side is nearly bald because the folicles were burned away.

My father... grabbing at the dual-edged blade...held by my mother...Blood!

The blood...the blood... on father's hands as mother wields the knife.

Sweaty, bulging stares filled with hate and desperation,

Venomous profanity spewing from both who are typically rational, thinking human beings... loving human beings

Hate on display--replacing the love they once knew.

How can this be after sharing dreams, buying the house of their dreams, having three beautiful children, being upstanding members of the church...

I was a product of their love--Now I was just another inescapable responsibility.

I am the face and scrawny body they do not see peeking through the crack in the door.

I am the dancer...The skinny unacceptable black ballerina...face pressed against the vast glass window of the studio near the railroad tracks.

Now I know divorce is inevitable...My heart is broken. My body is steely cold. My body feels broken, but I smile and keep dancing.

Nightmares are visions of convoluted variegated shades of greys and blinding flashes of light. I dream of falling off of cliffs and being buried alive...I smile through my tears.

At this end time of the day, I cannot sleep...Slumber does not visit my pillow. My lids are heavy, but my eyes do not sleep.

I don't want to remember...Dementia? It can be a gift. My heart and soul accommodate my wishes.

There were tales of long-lost love rekindled.

She had married her soul mate. She carried three babies, worked hard to get the things she thought we needed--when all she needed was love.

She sacrificed herself to put her man through college.

She stood on her feet all day and came home with swollen, blistered, aching feet--soaked them in Epson Salt hot water. She cleaned houses..."Day Worker"--euphamism for the maid--Anything to help our family get by. Yet, she found joy to impart to her children.

I can not even speak the word again...div--oo!!rr!!ce...

He remarried quickly; She lived out her life alone.

She felt betrayed by the love-of-her-life as so many women do.

She lost her health and took to the bottle in secret...

She chose to live unnoticed; She returned to the home of her mother who could not care for her as a child; She wished to die without a trace.

He outlived all the fools that he had been.

It is exhausting to remember this tale of woe.

Inside my colander of images

I see soul food on the table--fried chicken on Wednesday,

Steak on Sunday with creamy buttery mashed potatoes and savory green beans;

Street hockey until the street lights come on; Champions in midget softball; Singing in the Baptist church choir, White chiffon dresses on Easter Sunday...

Six o'clock morning gardening sessions on Saturday;

Fishing from the rocks on the bank of the lake--Crickets chirping, dragonflies humming, lightning bugs flickering;

Picking plump juicy blackberries covered with dew along the railroad tracks ready for Grandma's cobbler; yummy biscuits, homegrown chickens and corn-on-the-cobb; birthday pumpkin pie topped with whipped creme for Thansgiving...Long forgotten moments of joy.

Climbing the pear tree in Old Lady Gallahorn's backyard--Ready to jump to the ground at the flutter of a lacey kitchen curtain;

Dime dances on the weekends with popcorn and Kool-Ade in the sweaty basement; Sometimes joy not understood.

I feel like an echo--forever ricocheting through the granite mountains--surviving all the cruelty that has broken my heart, hardened my senses, and left my memory blank...Or, are they secrets?

I have outlived all the forgotten memories.