Welcome to my latest exercise in an attempt to reach my goal of being a prolific writer in 2022. So, in addition to writing 1 short story each week ( Because Ray Bradbury said you can’t write 52 bad ones – challenge accepted!) I will be attempting to post an original poem each day in April. This is not going to be easy – I’ve not really written poetry since college. So, these will be thrown together each day and not very edited.

I can hear you now – sucky stories and bad poetry? Sign me up.

For more information about the blogging challenge, see http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/)

Guilt and Italian Grandmothers

“Will I see you again before I die?”
Yes, Grandma, I say
You will outlive us all, I think,
Just to make sure we are not enjoying life too much

I was twenty-two and had all the time in the world.
She was an ancient 66,( but then again, now 66 seems
young, vibrant, so much life left.) I wasn’t wrong.

“When I was your age, we didn’t waste money for girls to go to college.”
I am grateful then, that I get to go, I say
It was the Dark Ages, I thought, keeping women busy with pregnancy and daily Mass
(The Dark Ages of the 1930s, where there wasn’t money to waste, not for immigrant families.)

I didn’t know then,
that while gifts, time, service, and all the patented “love languages”
there are other love languages as well.
Languages native to eras, to places, to cultures.

Trying at any cost to avoid being
Manipulated
Controlled
Forced
Used
by means of my grandmother’s guilt trips

I didn’t see what she was saying–
I love you
I miss you
I want you to stay near, be safe
I want you to have a better life than I did

I didn’t know guilt was a love language