My grandmother always told me

She loved me

But I never listened.

And now that she’s dead,

I can never be forgiven.

I wonder how she thought of me,

I wonder how she felt,

I wonder was she lonely,

Or content in her hell.

For she treated my mother like

A child of another,

Had her beaten apart by her own older brother,

Made her quit her job for a stranger’s wedding,

Attacked her character in every setting.

She would cause a scene at every family event,

My grandpa would sit in silent discontent,

For his dog was his only companion in that house,

His wife a manic abusive excuse of a spouse.

My few memories of her when she would still come around,

Are stained with hiccuped tears between higher decibels of sound.

She yelled at me that one time when I was six,

I’d had an accident in my bed, (we had a trash bag sheet fix).

That was mother’s final straw, she snapped and told her not to come back.

Until she could understand why she couldn’t treat me like that.

And years would pass by, and she would never return,

Not a muttered apology, not an ounce of concern.

Much later we would visit on a yearly rendezvous,

As she got older and had less things that she could do.

But still she told me she loved me,

And yet still I never listened.

We were strangers then

familial ties imprisoned.

And it’s funny because she was never kind,

So you’ll have to forgive me when I say that I lied.

Not about the stories, no those are all true,

But about the part where she said “I love you.”

I’d wondered if that feeling would have been steadying,

But reading it now,

My grandma never told me anything.