Mother hides me in the closet.
You won’t go back to that school. I’ll deal with your beloved father.
She smells of lavender perfume and sweat. Not like Dad with his Old Spice, calculated aroma, who mocks Mother. Arranges my future with Headmaster Edgar, Harvard, law.
Men bang at the doors. Buzzwords waft into my musky space: “Custody arrangement,” “legal orders.”
Get bent. Mother’s words hold firmness, edge.
Footsteps draw near, unpleasant pounding.
My mother tells them I’m her son. I’m someone who needs love.
I absorb that word, so foreign, while she fights, words rising.
Love. What beautiful form.
You won’t go back to that school. I’ll deal with your beloved father.
She smells of lavender perfume and sweat. Not like Dad with his Old Spice, calculated aroma, who mocks Mother. Arranges my future with Headmaster Edgar, Harvard, law.
Men bang at the doors. Buzzwords waft into my musky space: “Custody arrangement,” “legal orders.”
Get bent. Mother’s words hold firmness, edge.
Footsteps draw near, unpleasant pounding.
My mother tells them I’m her son. I’m someone who needs love.
I absorb that word, so foreign, while she fights, words rising.
Love. What beautiful form.
