Contemplating My Lost Daughter
Janna Vought is the author of the upcoming Evolution of Cocoons: A Mother’s Journey into Mental Illness and Autism, her memoir about raising her daughter who suffers from Bipolar I and Asperger’s Syndrome. Evolution of Cocoons will release Fall 2013.
I built her from dust,
a thousand wishes
crushed, darkness crumbling
light’s edges. I stood still silent
watched her burn alive in a cloud
of fire and shadows, body tattooed
with strands of flames. Nothing exists
beyond smoke and haze. I wake in her
rubble, sift through her remains:
lace anklets abandoned
hopes Winnie the Pooh
twisted girder. Mourn collapsed
buildings in her forsaken
city, iron gates secured, locked away
from me forever.
Fingers expand beyond
a mother’s grasp. It’s been years
since she spoke my name,
her dead eyes tucked inside
thoughtless hollows. Slumber in Lithium
dreams, dance in empty arms
of space. What does she say,
this stranger? Her language muddled
and thick as a silted river bed.
I yell. She doesn’t listen lost
in a daze. Swing a chain
above her head, snap it
across her sternum;
she feels nothing.
I could paint her
in still life. Moments of splendor
exist inside my memory,
days before she vanished
like a baby stolen in the night.
Relics of her early days
fill scrapbooks, face etched
onto my mindsweet precious girl.
Now it’s all arguments
and negotiations. Once she dwelled
in light; she now prefers
crevices, basements, darkened
corridors. She doesn’t care,
does what she wants: kicks
the dog, slams her fists into empty
air, calls me a liar.
I watched her soul sucked
from her like curtains pulled
through an open window.
I gave birth to her murder miracle
of reproduction corrupted
by a noxious stain.
I don’t sleep.
Panic burrows into me
like a parasite searching
for blood. When I take
a shower, or surface from sleep’s
shallows, I wonder: will she fracture,
darker one coming to destroy
me? Does she wait, a jaguar
ready to slay her prey? Fear
her wails thundering deep
into the night. Hide the pistol
and the butter knives.
Turn her loose,
but she needs to feed.
It is tiresome, so tiresome.
I need a break from endless
painreprieve. Limp on, her presence
a pebble in my shoe, blood-
shod blind barren delirious
with fatigue. Years layer.
Watch her fade like color drains
from winter’s redefined trees,
sharp brown limbs skewer crumpled
bodies. Glass tears shatter; I loved her
so long. Sobs shine from my torso, black
and pulsing light illuminates
thick air, glare long unseen
by her sick eyes. Who
can save her? She slipped
through my grasp into a deep
green sea, helpless bone bare.
Gaze down a lonesome road
into a life I thought I was missing,
where I never walk through
quicksand or breathe ash
and fire. I envy beauty
of lives tucked inside rooms
undisturbed by winged shadows.
Angels enter in lilacs
fading, the last moment
of night before dawn, in screams of sacred
rage of a mother dying.
I could have loved
my daughter.
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I graduated summa cum laude from American Public University in May of 2011 with a Bachelor’s in English, where I was a member of several honor societies including Golden Key and Delta Epsilon Tau. Subsequently, I graduated in December 2012 from Linde… Read More
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