Saturday May 30, 2020
8:23pm
5 minutes
Flower Finder
May Theilgaard
My mother and father never disagreed in front of us
They never would have gone over the other’s head
and we tried to be sneaky
as if they never spoke
as if they didn’t close the door after we had gone to bed to discuss us all at length
This was how they created a unit
Energetically, though, I wonder if they ever considered
Sometimes one of them would be angrier than the other
Maybe that was planned to so we’d still feel safe
When my parents picked me up from my first party in the 9th grade
they had to carry me to the car because I had passed out
When I woke up in my own bedroom wearing a friend’s clothes
I found cuts and bruises all over my face, with a chipped tooth to boot
When I finally summoned the courage to leave my room and talk to them
my head was spinning and I could barely move
Out in the kitchen my mother did all the seething and vocalizing of disappointment
while my father sat calmly trying to teach me about orange juice chasers and limitations
