Recollecting The Pieces Poem by RIC BASTASA

i went back
looking at old pictures

mama's smile when she got hospitalized
for diabetes
stings me existence
as though there was something
wrong with me
when she was
there

papa was well behaved during my wedding
i recalled
he was never one like that before
maybe he was happy
either to get rid of myself
in his house
or that i
shall suffer the same predicament
which he had
entangled himself
when he got married
to my mother

i can be unfair
i can be ignorant as
you like to
see me
as a blank wall

bad thoughts
lonely memories
the incapacity
to remember
some happy
moments
despite their
detected presences


but i wonder sometimes
how things may appear
different
from a distance
that i measure
upon myself

it is like i have bad pieces of me
that i form into
a collage
and yet when i look at it from afar
say here
it has become
the best painting
that for once
has brushed inside
my
mind.