Losing for Lost
To you my sister
To mute the perversion of love forfeiting to trusted traitors,
To deaden the rending of the breach made
By guardians who had no vindicators,
To be unsaid mediator and silence their quarrels
Into family speaking words made for lasting,
To escape the cruel middle ground of tug’o’war,
You, child, blamed the incurability in shadows haunting the home
And sized up the darkness and charged the ring and
Thought rage would make up the difference.
You think shadows will fear your wrath and shy to double cross
But you’re losing, losing, losing for lost.
And your eyes are still swollen shut from blows of unfair fights.
Shoved into corners, you were jabbed and stabbed and
Hemorrhaging ingested tears behind locked doors from nights
Slept through from under the bed, boxing shadows, gloves up,
Guarding your ears, dodging punches of what sounded like love yesterday
But not dodging enough to duck hits breaking bones,
Clobbering hope in dreams of Father loving Mother finally, of Mother and
Father finding harmony, of Father loving you entirely
While you were rendered sightless, paralyzed, numbing into desensitized
From years of what you could not see there.
You bleed of fears, you bleed of festering, you bleed and refuse
Anyone who comes near, choosing for cost, boxing shadows
That may have past and made room for light but you stubbornly
Hold fast the gloves, throwing blows at love’s approach.
Losing, losing, losing for lost the countless rematches,
Losing, losing for lost the hard-hitting energies of angry fists,
Losing yourself as the fight in self detaches and collapses
From defeat, round one round two round three, pinning you down
The shadows you found haunting what you thought to be home.
Choosing, choosing, choosing for cost to box and flail and fail
The match in grudge against shadows, losing for lost.
© 2014. Asha Gowan. All Rights Reserved.
