September 04, 2005

The Legacy of Sharpness


Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.







Sharpness filled my grandmother's life.
She could not get away from it.
Knives and cuts from knives.

My grandfather was a violent man.
Domestic violence was his pleasure.
He lived to use his hands.

From what I heard their live together was a dance.
A dance of her running, a dance of him chasing.
Her life was not worth much in his eyes.

He brought sharpness to her life.
The sharpness of knives.
He was a man obsessed with knives.

Mom describes open flesh showing white meat.
Flesh that opened up like butter.
My grandfather cutting, cutting, cutting.

Cuts under breasts, cuts on stomachs,
Cuts on arms, cuts in hands.
Hands grabbing blades slicing thru the air.

Cuts in vaginas. Yes, cuts in vaginas.
Cuts on legs and backs of heels.
Those were the ones made as you ran ahead.

Cuts in throats, yet all survived.
Maimed and scarred for the rest of their lives.
My grandfather was obsessed with knives.

Did I saw WAS? 90 now and still obsessed.
Go to his house and all around.
Knives.

Knives in his bed.
Knives in the wheelchair.
Knives under the matress, on the night stand, inthe bathroom.
Knives everywhere.
We beware, whenever we go there.

Helpless now at 90 but still obsessed.
Fearful now. He says people are trying to get him.
Thus the need for knives.

We have removed them from the house.
Over and over again more appear.
Each one we find more wicked and more sharp than the last.

The knives are endless there.
We never turn our back on him.
90 might mean senility.

90 might mean death for us.
He might knife us while out of his head.
He lives the legacy of sharpness.
It will go with him to the grave.

The legacy of sharpness carried on with him.
When he got a new wife she got her share.
He got from her a hatchett in the back of the head.

The legacy of sharpness dulled a bit after that.
That new wife fought back.
That new wife was his match.

They lived the legacy of sharpess together.

That legacy of sharpness spread to my uncles.
It was what they saw when they were little.
Knives were a way of life.

I remember many stabbings and street fights they were involved in.
Mom had to go to the hospital.
Mom had to take my uncles in at times for them to recuperate.

The legacy of sharpness did not follow my mother.
Other, just as evil, legacies did.
It is what you learn.

Living in the legacy of sharpness.

6 comments:

  1. Bit dark eh?

    I wonder what legacies have found their way down to you...

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  2. none! thank the lord. i realized at a young age my family was sick and needed help. I learned to do running on my own to get out of the way of the abuse. when i was little it was my goal to survive long enough to get out of the house, get therapy which i began as soon as i was on my own in college freshman year...so that the cycle of abuse would not continue with me. no legacies have followed me. it has been my life's goal to be sure of that.

    in have tried to confront my family about their behavior and the need to get help on their own but they are all in denial so i stay away from them for the most part. they are toxic and i cannot have that toxic stuff in my life anymore. as a child you are stuck but once i was in college i was free of that toxic family.

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  3. To hodgepodger,
    The poem speaks for itself, I am glad you have survived this horrible event in the years of growing up! Many do not make it, abuse is so toxic as you mentioned. Thank God for the little things life offers!
    God Bless from Holly a blogger friend. You truly an amazing woman!

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  4. thanks holly. you are so right. it is very hard to recognize that you are in a cycle of abuse and then take the necessary steps to get out.

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  5. Such a haunting poem. Very well written, but so sad.

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