Family Tree of Dysfunction
“Who will share with the class today?”
Asks old, Ms. Peggy Ann McKay
An eager hand shoots way up high-
Why- It’s quiet, little June Blue Skye
“Come on up!” Ms. McKay says with glee,
“And share with us your family tree.”
June bounces past her third grade class
With her postered tree of great mass
The thing is nearly twice her size!
But the title is the BIG surprise
June reads aloud with all her gumption:
“Family Tree of Dysfunction!”
“This project got me to thinking
About Grandad’s over-drinking
And Auntie Mays constant worry
There must be more to the story…
More than the branches and leaves
More than the birds and the bees
‘Cus when our parents had the sex
What they made was quite complex.”
“Let’s stop there”, blushes Ms. McKay.
But June keeps on with her display-
She points to her name at the base
“I’m not only a cute round face…
You all say that I’m shy and afraid
But Nana calls me “Thee Grenade”
Like her dad used to fight the Germans
Who tried to kill my Great Pop Herman
Probs some passed down trauma there
And why anxiety fills Grandma Blair.
Yes, Brayden the holocaust is true
Tell your dad to turn off Fox News.
So… Herman gets P. T. S. D.
Causing him to be absentee
Causing Grandad to hit the bars
Causing Mom to look up at the stars
She raised me to follow my dreams
So once in a while I go to extremes.
Yet my brother August is a realist
Which brings me to part of my thesis:
It seems that kids turn into their rents
Unless there is a turn of events,
In which they go the opposite way
To avoid becoming another cliche.
For example, Dad isn’t strict
Because his dad gave him the whip
’Cus his dads mom was silent and weak
’Cus dads mom’s mom gave lots of critique
And dads mom’s mom favored CiCi
The golden child was free as can be
As Nana went coy her sister grew wild
Then at sixteen, CiCi was with child..”
June’s pointer is moving a mile a minute
So deep in the tree that she has to spin it
Her third grade class is all eyes and ears
While Ms. McKay is almost in tears.
“… so sibling order matters, but I digress,
Back to CiCi who was in a huge mess.
She was knocked up by ‘question mark’-here,
then had Auntie May and passed on her fear
Auntie May was so scared of sins
It’s a wonder how she came to have twins
Cousin July acts like a saint
While Cousin April is out huffing paint
It’s true, Skye holidays get a bit crazy
But I wouldn’t have it any other way
Our trees appear so green and neat
Though, without mess, it’s not complete
Dysfunction makes us all 3D
Shy yet loud and small yet mighty.
The pattern I saw, that can you see now
Is that parents will fuck you up, somehow.”
The class roars with applause for little June
Who stands tall and proud, over the moon.
Shock washes over Peggy Ann McKay,
My God, she wishes it was a Saturday.