So this is a piece I’ve scaffolded (meaning it isn’t completely original- I’ve linked the original version). I’d never scaffolded before (and this is actually the worked-out version, so it’s no longer “technically” scaffolding) BUT it turns out scaffolding is a super fun exercise and I recommend it.

Also, I just said “scaffold” so many times.

Legacy

One of my parents was a truck driver, the other a stripper.
In the night I’d wake to sequins and the faint smell of gasoline.
A small town drag race in lingerie.

They tattooed their strange rituals into my child dreams.

One of my parents was a homosexual, the other a child I carried into the night, convinced she was my daughter.
Meth, and cancer, and a honeymoon with too many people.

We pour years down the sink to try and unclog the problems.

In the revolving door of my becoming one was silent and one was secret.
Both were absent.

Thus, my troubled birth, my endless name.
Hyphen hyphen hyphen.
We are always the same distance apart, connected and never touching.

One of my parents I soaked up and both I cried for.

One was a whisper, the other a scream.
How they choked each other.

The sound of slammed doors before sunrise was our soundtrack.

One of my parents was a dream, the other a hammer.
I was ashamed of myself, embarrassed I couldn’t love enough to fix them.

I was a girl calling across the night on a line that had gone dead.

*Genealogy by Betsy Sholl