Lunch with Grandma

We stand together,
the four of us, generations apart,
in my grandma's living room
smiling.

We share the same blood,
the same high cheek bones,
round face, freckles, eye shape,
and laugh.

A warmth runs through me as our bodies
confess to one another of our shortcomings
and our desires from
lives lived apart.

I see myself in these women.
Carol, Arlene, Grandma, and Me.
I have lived a very different life,
removed from most of them.

Yet we are still the same.
I can say I know them
because I know
myself.

Family

I sit here on her purple bedspread wrapped up in a pink, fuzzy blanket.
We walked in the door and a glass of wine was poured.
They met me at the airport with anxious, waiting faces.
They were patient while I got my bag at baggage claim.
We drove admiring the city lights,
To their home that feels like my home.
We all look alike;
Bright eyes, high cheek bones, freckles.
In her room with a poster on the wall reading: I Love Ben
I sit knowing we will forever be connected.
I do not know them yet they are family.
Sitting here, wrapped up in a pink, fuzzy blanket,
This is not my life and I am in it.

  

I want...

To be
where they dance in the streets, this town it is so dull.

To laugh
on a street corner, who cares if they all think I'm mad.

To wear wild pants
because they brighten everyone's day.

To kiss the feet
of a bronze statue.

To die
knowing I've done the best I could.

To live
not mere to surviving but thriving.

To question
the information I've been told, there's no telling what I might find.

To untie
those knots, pull out those hooks, and run into the arms of God.

To cry
without shame.

To smile
and not have my innocence taken away.

To write
whatever I want.

To believe
that I am whole, complete and perfect already,

and so are you.