The invisible felt in tick tock pocket watch time,
hand wound in memory of more innocent years.
When the word 'family' meant whole, meant safe—
or did it? Nostalgia is an unreliable narrator.
Rewind the tape, let's play it again
to see what never happened. The lies
we tell ourselves to sleep at night. To look
ourselves in the mirror, in the eyes
betraying truth we're so desperate to hide.
Smell once more the hearth fire smoke, taste
the fresh baked homemade fears made quaint.
Photos reveal reality as we choose to portray it.
You rebel, you miscreant, how dare you breathe
a word unapproved by committee. The open wound,
your mouth, a bloodletting of secrets, a sin
that heaves hell upon your own shoulders.
Uprooting what was planted before your birth.
Setting a wildfire back through history, a kindling
of your family tree, branches turned to ash
by the match you lit, gnarled roots no one wants
to see, buried so deep not even hell can touch,
what lies beneath will devour us. Better to
self-inflict revelation than perpetuate heritage. Who
we are is what we do,not the blood in our veins.
by V.C. McCabe, from Give the Bard a Tetanus Shot
