Making Arrangements

It had been three days and a handful of hours since that man became my problem again.
I thought I’d cast him out and set myself free,
but ghosts never quite let go.

Another who wronged me, dead,
yet I’m too snowed under with paperwork to seek revenge,
worrying if resentment will give me worry lines,
and if I have enough ethnic ancestors for my black not to crack under all this mess and pressure.

Bothered black sheep,
bordering on exhaustion,
but still keeping a promise I didn’t recall making.
I tried to be strong for the weakest in my blood line,
battling the urge to undo the bottle that had become a bomb.

Ever self absorbed,
I willed myself on, wondering what the next generation of trauma traced children of this clan are thinking of me,
in this very moment,
in this latest meltdown.

Everybody (but those who don’t) gets out alive,
but nobody gets out unscathed,
and I can’t explain why the grandfather and great uncle they may mourn are the meaning of my melancholy mood,
because, it’s not nice to say,
and I am polite, even post exile.

But I’ve got this bottle.
A bottle that became a bomb when I took my eyes off it,
shaking and spurting like a rocket,
with as little self control as I have.

I think we are going nuclear.