Tag: Jean Voneman Mikhail

Parallels: A Pseudo Cento by Jean Voneman Mikhail

~ ONE ART ~ 6 Comments

Parallels: A Pseudo Cento

          Texts between a son struggling
          with addiction and his mom.

i.

I am 21 years old. Stop tracking me.
I told you already,
I am somewhere on a huge bridge.
I walked out of Poetsmouth into Kentucky. Portsmouth, I mean.
I can see these huge fish in the river.
There’s this one really big fish.
I can see him on the bottom.
Then rain in my eyes.
I’m sorry, mom. I love you.
Can you Venmo me some water, Mama?
Can you Venmo me some Taco Bell, Mama?
No, I have not been doing meth.
No. I’m not on jack shit.
I am crying and my head hurts.
I can’t cry most of the time.
I am out of breath and sweating.
I don’t see any street signs.
I am so tired. I only see stop signs.
My eyes are so red and blurry.
No. I’m not high.
No. I haven’t taken klonopin
in like forever.
The lights are hurting my eyes.
I am scared to be alone, mom,
so I am begging on my knees.
Please, can I come home?
I know you don’t want me to.
I am so ready to get out of here.
I’m so tired of sober living.
I am so ready to be free.
My bed has been tilting.
I never have food.
I feel like I’m never
going to get out of here.
I just want to die.
Don’t worry if I don’t answer.
I am so scared to be alone.
I need friends. Like, Jesus Christ.
I’ve been calling him. He won’t answer.
Did he change his name, or what?

ii.

Maybe you’ve been grinding your teeth.
You need a nightguard.
Call the doctor again.
Call the court again.
I would try calling them again.
Just leave a message.
I wish I knew how to help you.
Just cry it out. You will be ok.
He will help you figure it out.
You’re not really alone.
You just need to decide.
I don’t know why you can’t see that.
Either you want to live or die.
Since you are using right now,
I can’t be around you.
I can’t be around drugs.
I’m sorry. I love you.
I’m not buying you anything.
But water? Ok.
Why are you on a bridge?
Can you stay in one place?
Like go somewhere and stay?
I will come get you.
Wait for me there. Please,
don’t go anywhere.

*

Jean Voneman Mikhail lives in Athens, Ohio, where she first came to study for a Masters in Creative Writing. Many years and a few kids later, she now writes more than ever. She has published in Sheila Na Gig Online, The Northern Appalachian Review, Pudding Magazine and other poetry journals and anthologies.

Two Poems by Jean Voneman Mikhail

~ ONE ART ~ 5 Comments

Breath

Tent of my kid pitched in the backyard,
blown over, collapsing in on himself.
Tent stake through his heart.

I’ve left him to the rain, again,
grass blades stuck to his back,
huffing a billowy paper bag of breath.

A baggie of cut triangular sandwiches.
A baggie of blow. A baggie of weed.
Holy trinity of school lunches.

I have fed him to live to build
fingers for sandwiches and fiddle.
I have opened his Oreo black eyes

when they wouldn’t open.
I’ve unscrewed the lids,
and looked into the frosted eye whites

and scraped him of sweetness.
I fear I’ve made a mess of him.

I gave him sippy cups with blow holes.
Juice boxes with snorting straws.
Straws to stick up a turtle’s nose.

Once, he cared about
all the animals.

He cried for the neighbor’s kitten dead
in winter, fed on snowy moonlit milk.

He wanted the world to be kinder.

Is there any way to save him, now,
from chasing that washed up baggie
turning inside out in the waves

long ago down a stretch of beach,
a baggie filled with ocean water,
safety locked, zipped full of air?
His breath.

* 

LGLG

Dear God, with your capital G,
I see what you’re up to,
counting bodies down in Portsmouth,

Ohio, of all places to leave him.
God, listen to me, you can’t
have him all to yourself in an alley.

Your wrought iron doors,
windowless eyes bricked in,
having ceased watching over him,
haven’t you? How

would I ever know? Quietly,
cable wires cross this city,
trains rock themselves
to sleep at the end of the line.

But where is he, where is my son?

If he must die, if he must die,
how with dignity, how—
with forgiveness, how without shame?
How do I keep him from death
if death is what he chooses?

Should I lie down with him
and die, too, on the crescent moon
sidewalk of what was to be
our first total solar eclipse,

For my son, for my son’s life,
I’d give just about anything
except what I can no longer give.
No shelter. No food. No more.

God, no.

What kind of insanity is this?
Let go, let God. LGLG.
Give me a break.
I’ve given enough.

*

Jean Voneman Mikhail lives in Athens, Ohio, where she first came to study for a Masters in Creative Writing. Many years and a few kids later, she now writes more than ever. She has published in Sheila Na Gig Online, The Northern Appalachian Review, Pudding Magazine and other poetry journals and anthologies.