Not sure I went to bed

same woman I woke up

An act of boldness

courage

Put your big girl pants on

led to opening

Pandora’s box

old battered Whitman sampler tin

holding flotsam and jetsam

of absent father’s life

 

Thought I was prepared

for the truths it held

hand written letters

ghosts calling from the past

clues to a puzzle

Was his madness

my madness?

Does my poet soul

vibrate with his?

Three generation inheritance

dyslexia

depression

poetic passion

trying to glean

understanding of nature vs nurture

 

Humble tin

held no answers

Pandora’s box

revealed a man-child

Scrawl eerily similar

to mine

 

I discover that the few truths

I thought I had been entrusted with

about my parents

about our family

were fantasy

fabrication

refuted by an unexpected voice from their past

 

Were these lies

half-truths

told to protect me

his memory

her?

No objective truth

to be sought

No case to put

a detective on

Only players able

to provide insight

long-silenced

 

I am left alone

in wee hours

to sort through wreckage

Left to reconcile

who I thought they were

who I thought we were

with the stunning contents

of Pandora’s box

 

© 2017 Christine Elizabeth Ray – All rights Reserved