Denial

If I never say the word out loud,
then it never happened.
If I never write the words down,
then it never happened.
If I obey my mother,
then it never happened.
If I deny myself,
then it never happened.
If I never lived,
then it never happened.

Never happened.
Shit happened.
It happened.

Bundle it, bind it, bury it.
Compact it, camouflage it, cover it.
De-emphasize it, divide it, deny it, destroy it.

Analyze it. Reduce it to its basic elements
and scatter them to the wind, never to be joined again.

Neat and tidy. Memory erased. Event deleted. Queue empty.
Not so.

The memories remain. The pointers are gone. Random look ups survey the isolated event data, but cannot make the connections.
This means something, but I don't remember what. Save it for later,
but later never comes. It does not grow back into the tapestry of life.

Like a weed, it sends out runners, to search for fertile ground.
A place to start a foothold. Interconnect the pieces.

Nice and tidy. Surgically neat. No thoughts, no feelings, no opinions.
Clean and antiseptic now.

Deny it, recant, and rejoin the flock. Certified sanitized.
Don't bother reality with facts.

Step on a crack, break your mother's back.
Speak out the truth, break your mother's heart.

No, it never happened. No incest in our house.

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Copyright notice: You may copy and distribute this poem provided that
you attribute it to me, the author, Beryl Nitrate.


Beryl Nitrate
Send words 'n' stuff to:
www.hogbytes1.com/poems/bdpdenial.htm-- Revised: 20 JUN 2002.
Copyright © 1997 Beryl Doane