once and for all

&
patterns
die
slow...

(because)
you didn't know

that when you grabbed him
by the scruff of HIS neck
1, 2, 9, 25 years old

you reached into the present day
and left your red hand marks
on mine


you didn't know

that your one-time abuse
your temper thrown tone
(scraping in my ears
like heavy metal screams)

     would be the
angry echoed yell

banging on walls
adorned with family photos,
printed monet paintings,
&
good luck fortune scrolls

(from nails
your legacy dangles
like vertical paper diaries
folded into
knuckles
and
teeth..


your work,
a porcelain bowl's glaze
dripping and crackling,
reaching perfection
long after
the artist has died..
                             ..)


you didn't know
that
your scolding, frustrated strikes

       would become
the things on the dresser
my dad pushed to
the ground,
burning holes in the carpet
like a coal left on wax:

grandfather-shaped
depressions
i
fell into..

you didn't know that

the bruise
on my
soul


would become
the pain in my girlfriend's smile
the shaken ground upon which i walk
long days of occasional parent fights
going to sleep
with a twisted stomach

4 generations ago,
one carried abuse
passed down
from father to son to son to son

a
pattern
that bleeds
into my present

the history that speaks
and repeats
  and repeats
    and repeats
      and repeats


until  it  is  heard

once
and for all.

In Ancient China, potters adorned their ceramics with glazes that were meant to reach crackled “perfection” generations after they had died, achieving the desirable glassy blue-greens and “robin’s egg” hue. Lined with intentional cracks, this style of artwork entailed the use of a specific glaze that would gradually drip from the rims of clay bowls and settle at the bottom.