TEN MINUTE THEURAPUTIC SESSION

I remember the time
my dad, brother and i
went to go to see my mother
in warren pa
at the state psychiatric hospital.
my brother was about 11
and i was about 12.
i am the oldest of the siblings.
i took away a lot of visuals
that day after i left.
i learned early on
to retreat from anything
that was difficult to swallow.
my mother struggled off and on
with her bi-polar condition.
i suppose i had been in my forties,
and my sister had to forcibly
get her entered in the hospital.
my sisters were the overseers,
and i had been informed
she was there.
i wasn’t strong enough
to tackle such a thing.
i went to go to see her
that particular night.
let me tell ya,
she was the extreme extrovert.
that woman flatly could talk.
when her condition
would flair up,
she’d be in an extreme manic mode.
her conversation
was so fast,
but yet it seemed
as if she had lived
on the streets.
i teared up that night.
she never knew i had,
and after i left
while driving home,
the tears started to flow.
some think that when you become and adult,
you just grab and eraser
and erase your childhood completely away.
i haven’t been able to do that
on either front.
it would just be nice
if someone could really identify
how things were for me.