If It Didn't Suck....

I don't have any family. My mother was my only family and when she passed on February 17th 2001 I was left alone. Orphaned, if you will, at 31. Though I was alone a lot earlier than that. I am not using this post to bad mouth or talk ill, after all it is Mother's Day, and all I will say of this post is that it is dedicated to Sandra Ramos Castagna, and here is a poem I wrote a few months after she passed. The poem is rough and untitled.

Never too young to die
Never too old to cry
Never foolish to ask why

product of single parent home
orphaned at 31
my life my own now
but I don't know what to do
how to live
what I want

Its so hard to let loose
& be happy
too much pain in the world
scalpel severing sensitive
nerve endings of fingertips

I never knew my father
but I met him at his funeral
was he ever happy?
I'll never know.

My mother died at 59
about 20 people showed up to her funeral
to remember
or to show they are still alive
was she ever happy?

smiling through IV tubes
& interbation
& monitors
& why cant I ever feel happiness?
I have been choking on misery
for as long as I have been
as long as I can remember

I was never told that I made her proud
never allowed to live the life I wanted
but I had to do
what I had to do
blood is blood right?

The life I wanted was
now a foregone conclusion
& then
BAM
just like that
Orphaned at 31
& now I have all the time
& all the options opened
& I can change the course of my life
but I don't know what to do
I never was able to ask
what I wanted
what I needed
I did what I had to do
for her.

& then she was gone.....

Never too young to die
Never too old to cry
I will have to take life as it comes now....
but I forgot to ask why....