At my new school,
at first
no one really knows who I am.
They think maybe I am Italian
or from South America.
No one knows me here not even me.
But I think I am becoming more like my grandfather.
Old Man.
I remember his stories
but not much about my own past.
So I need to find little Jeremy Stone.
I’m pretty sure he was never Italian.
My mother promised to help me find him.
Find me.
She’d been trying
to tug some words out of me for three years.
Before that she had lectured me for being
too loud
too rude
too curious.
And then she really lost it
and hit me. (Like my dad had done, only different.)
At least I think she hit me
or someone did anyway.
That’s when I stopped talking.
Went silent like a stone.
But I’m not gonna blame her
No.
Not my mother. She tried her best
but had wrestling matches with her own personal demons.
Ya know.
Drink.
Men (after my father evaporated).
Some kind of pills.
She said none of it would kill her.
Not even the men,
or the smokes. (Tobacco is sacred, she said.)
Changed her mind after the coughs.
Good thing too.
Me,
I never smoked.
Not tobacco anyway.
But my mom
she loved me
and thanked me when I found my tongue again
and words spilled out. But I only spoke to people who
really knew who I was
and that was
a pretty small group.