Family of Origin Pt. IV by Melissa Lemay

My father is 
in all my poems
like a lover whose
heartache
is in all his songs.

Like his father before
him, I did not know him. 
They are the ones
that got away. 

Sadly,
this became tradition.
My father’s mother
and my mother
did not get along.

I called her Grammy.
She smoked cigarettes,
and she liked to play Bingo.
We would play card games
and Yahtzee with my dad.

We would sit around a table
and play, and they
smoked their cigarettes.

They loved Pepsi.

I can tell you that,
but

can not tell you 
for certain
what they thought about 
me.

My father raped me.
And I can’t separate
him; I 
can’t 
separate

me.
I’m 

not quite sure
where
any of them
fit, since I 
did not really know them. 
They are such a minuscule
part of my story, and yet

they became all of it.


Bio:

Melissa Lemay is a stay-at-home mother from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She never graduated college. She has lived an interesting life, and her experiences shape her writing (some might call it an obsession). She writes about God, addiction, trauma, healing, being a mother, and many other things. Additionally, she enjoys spending time with family, drinking good coffee, and cats–petting them, not drinking them. Find her at https://melissalemay.wordpress.com