“The results of not practicing Tough Love”
Earlier in my life in a previous marriage I became a step-father to three children. When I married their Mother, the youngest boy was age six named _ _ _ _ _. _ _ _ _ _ _ was both a druggie, thief and mentally unbalanced. I suspect the mental problems came from his Father at his own birth since his real Father died of a drug overdose. The boy for fourteen years of that marriage brought me nothing but pain and grief each day of that marriage. When it came to choosing between me or him by now my ex-wife of more than thirty years ago, she choose him. He destroyed her life both from a mental point of view beside a financial one. Today my ex lives in the same now broken down home because of this boy who today in his late forties has been in and out of prison and more than likely is living with her. His life and her life are a great example of what “Tough Love” and its lack of on her part, is all about. The following poem is on the first page of my first published poetry book.
The house was saddened. Though occupied it appeared not. The uncut hedge nearest the street rose to a height of many feet. The brushes around the house had not been trimmed in close to a year. Amidst peeling paint and wild dandelions in the yard was a yearning for love which the house received year’s past. Inside the home pale and yellowed walls reflected the internal sickness that destroyed the love of its adult inhabitants. A sickness born of a young mind bounded by the disciplines of evil in his youth. Torn wallpaper marked the first surrender of this youth’s mother to a childish whim in year’s past. Pride departed now shown in the dishes and pots piled on the kitchen sink with crusted leftovers from last week. The curtains were partly open from a previous night not for the sun of day but a beacon to unwelcomed intruders of night by the youth of the house. The smell of evil engulfed the house. A pungent sickly odor exhaled by the youth of the house which brought the gaze of forgetfulness to the point of nowhere. He sat proudly overseeing his domain. His position secure to sleep to play to reach new highs in his world of bright lights and swirling thoughts. He had won. He now had his mother his protector and provider all to himself. The man of the house which became no one departed with his things. The youth laughed and laughed in sheer joy at his victory.
Texas Poetry 