Aunt Laurie

Aunt Laurie

as an infant
my mother abandoned me
to the care and rearing
of a temperamental
and immature
father

so my aunt
offered to adopt
and raise me
as one of her own
telling her brother
and their mother
maybe 
being so tiny
i wouldn't know
the difference

on my grandmother's advice
my father refused
her telling him
if he let me go
he'd regret it
for the rest of his life
and assuring him
she'd be there
to help navigate him
through fatherhood

so i was raised
an only child
with a single and insecure
temperamental and immature
parent
with the closest thing
to a mother
being the surrogacy
my grandmother
took from my aunt

in her last years
my aunt
gowning senile
told me
how she'd tried to adopt me
i told her 
how i already knew

she said
"i saw what was ahead for you
and i tried to save you
but i couldn't
as the forces
of no good
were conspired
against us."

i gave her
my heartfelt thanks
and admitted
i'd thought a lot
over the course of my life
how things
might have turned out
had my aunt
gotten her way

i thanked her
sincerely
with full knowledge
that the objectifications
the horrors
of expectations 
within particular households
are generally
minor variations
of the same
horrors
of objectifications
and vain expectations
within any other
household

my father
always said
how much
my grandmother adored me
but i wonder
sometimes
if the main reason
she adored me
was because
she had
nothing else
and needing something
for herself
maybe that
was the reason
i ended up
with my father
instead of
aunt laurie

i believe
aunt laurie
understood
all that
way before
me
and held on
to most of those secrets
until the senility
let them go