Too much has happened here

He has waged silent warfare

Socially learned neglect as norm.

Avoided glances and eye contact.

Shut doors and cellphone for finger tips.

His attention, his smiles, his affection-

reserved for those who do not make him feel ashamed of his own existence.

His conversation, his loving touch

for those who validate his struggle to climb to the respect table

where I should be but could never attempt/ing to reach.

Too much has happened here

He has left the smell of polite smiles at my efforts to be worthy of acknowledgement.

He has eaten in putrid quiet that reeks of anger at his childhood, while she has scrambled around looking for her way out in festive dishes and perfectly set tables.

I hear his fear in the hallways muffled by her regret and suicide attempts.

She has mopped over them with parent-teacher meetings, over investment in our lives or over loving everyone and the attached parts of herself.

Too much has happened here

We have fought over clothes and accessories

We have competed for titles that nobody told us were birthrights

We have placed the judgment of our worth in him, her and the institutions that massacred him and her - left them in present bodies, drowning in wells of broken down barely breathing unsure souls.

Too much has happened here

I left.

I have identified, then co-identified to find I mis-identified for the books to tell me not to identify at all.

I have nightmares of the boy I let touch me

Strum his curious tunes across the keys of my skin

To unlock his unreadiness and flee from too muchness.

I have nightmares of the love I felt for him and the disdain he felt of me.

His was always a lock I picked apart while the mirror in the keyhole made him cringe with memories of too much happening in his mother’s home.

He has replied emails and love letters with one word answers while he questioned everything about hating how much he needed to love me.

Too much has happened here

We wake up in sweat in the middle of the night

Panting