sean johnson

 

 

Andrea Yates
 
Some days I wanted to turn the radio up
…drown out my ability to listen
How I got in this
I can’t remember
All I know is I said I do
got stuck
fucked
five times over
Traded in my freedom
for the all American dream
            the house
the mini-van
the kids
the chores
the pleasure of being one man’s whore for life
He called me wife
they called me mother
they called me so much
I became 3 others
I began sinking
I fell off the verge
trying to catch my sanity
before I lost it
Someone would have to pay the cost
for this store bought
American dream given to me
as some kind of gift
This wasn’t what I asked for
I felt like
returning it
returning him
returning them
exchanging that familial derangement
for the autonomy of my estrangement
So I did
Each kid
one by one
told them it would be fun
we were going on a trip
to the lost city of Atlantis
where I could find myself
As they lost breath
I inhaled
As they lost breath
I exhaled
As they entered death
I saw myself
Living
Living to tell the story
that had gone unheard so long
After the first two kids
he saw me drowning
and still wanted to carry on
his family line
Over a period of time
he saw me still drowning
with each vacuum bag
with each bag of groceries
with each mommy she did this to me story
Drowning
with each meal cooked
with each day of hardworking
home economics overlooked
Drowning
my hands shook
with tension
every time they mentioned
their schoolwork
their work shirts
their shirts wrinkled
pants need creasing
work increasing
sanity decreasing
last nerve releasing
its strength for being stepped on
judgment gone
with the last bubbles
rising from a bathtub full of past struggles
 
I did love them
But some days I wanted to turn the radio up
…drown out my ability to listen
When I couldn’t
I turned the water up
and drowned out their existence



Sean Johnson graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Houston with a Bachelors of Science in Interdisciplinary Studies. Since then she has slammed and performed spoken word throughout the country and written as well as starred in several local plays. She currently stars as Anita Dupree in the stage play So Many Secrets, So Many Lies. Her poetry has appeared in Say it at Your Wedding, Pure Francis Online Journal, Riversongs, American Society: What Poets See and Littlest Blessings, and she has works appearing in The Storyteller later this year. She resides in Houston, Texas with her beloved dog Blue Belle.


 

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