Tag: memoir

Perhaps the start of a poetic memoir, maybe just randomness

Tara A. Lesko - Writer

Still, every once in a while, a poem or two will come out of nowhere even when I’m drowning in fiction. I highly recommend Beth Kephart’s Tell the Truth. Make it Matter: a memoir writing workbook.

If this jewelry box could talk…

I’m older than anyone left living in the family, 

yet I’ve seen less of your world 

then these rings you never wear, 

and the broken chains you’ll never fix. 

I am stained with nail polish remover and hot tears. 

I thought you’d paint over me one day. 

Then you realized Mom would have killed you 

for altering my chipped, distressed bones. 

Locket-sized photos of people you barely knew, 

broken broaches and chokers, marbles, Italian lira, 

Mom’s chunky necklaces you can’t bring yourself 

to touch – nevermind wear. 

This is what you’ve held hostage inside of me 

all these years, and when you’re gone 

they’ll be no one left to take me to a new home. 

So before I find myself in a rummage sale 

tape a note to me that says, “I mattered once”. 

A note from the bedroom door…

I’m tired of watching you scroll on your phone 

until you fall asleep and the damn thing hits the floor, 

exhausted listening to you bawling 

until that one blocked sinus in your conscience clears. 

I’m open when I should be closed. 

I’m closed, and stay closed, when the breeze 

vies for a chance to cool the sweat on your neck. 

Stop hanging things on me as if you’ll never need me to close. 

I am worth more than the cheap, gray paint you dressed me in. 

I am the first thing that stands against the world for you, 

so use me like you use this pen – 

urgently, with a strong grip and without reason. 

Moving forward 

You forgot I was there, didn’t you? The key fob to what was your mother’s car. It’s funny what you forget once it falls to the bottom of the fifth purse you’ve used this month. Remember when the dog chewed on the corner of me? Mom never scolded the dog since the fob still worked – starting the engine, locking the doors, creating the illusion of safety with the panic button. That’s just the kind of person she was – forgiving, as long as she and everyone she loved appeared safe, alive, and free to move forward. 

The Bonfire – an excerpt from the in-progress continuation of my first book, Serotonin with a side of fries, please – Tara Lesko

Tara A. Lesko - Writer

…Still, trying to resume some semblance of normalcy was harder than finding enough change in my jeans’ pockets when I wasn’t expecting a toll. I was still determined to create this illusion that everything was status quo when in reality, my racing thoughts fed off every organ in my body like some unknown parasite – a mental tapeworm that started in the brain and worked it’s way down, colliding with whatever light traveled up from my ass chakra towards my skull.

Although I knew I was going to receive a lot of weird looks, I decided to bring a supply of Post-it notes and pens with me to the bonfire. Prior to this, I saw advertisements for stacks of cocktail napkin-size papers called flying wishes. These papers were meant for writing down dreams, desires, and everything that was best to let go. Once these things were written down, you were then expected to set them on fire, the rapidly burning paper supposedly posed little threat of setting a house ablaze. I never quite understood why anyone would want to set their dreams and wishes on fire. I mean, I get the symbolism of releasing these thoughts into the air and allowing nature to take its course with them – burn something solid, it turns into a gas, basic science. But perhaps the hidden pyro in me felt it made more sense, and it would be more fun, to torch the thoughts that needed to be destroyed leaving nothing to linger. It made no sense to spend money on paper to burn because someone decided to call it flying wish paper and stick it in a pretty package. Plus, I was flat broke at the time, so I settled on a stack of old Post-its to scribble negative dross then light up. I hoped that other bonfire participants would follow my example. February wasn’t too late to start a new year by letting shit go.

Surprisingly many did follow along with my impromptu ritual, or they were simply drunk or high enough to stare intensely at the slow burn of Post-its with “fuck it” written on them. Regardless, I made the most out of my own little release party. 

I can’t do my job. 

No more Add to Cart days.

I’m going to be an indefinite freeloader. 

All I want to do is sleep. 

There’s no Starbucks nearby. 

I won’t be able to feed my dog. 

I like cutting off my oxygen. 

Am I going to write anything else but this?

How am I going to get out of this? 

I failed another test.

Something along those lines. You get the point.

It got to a point where I forgot about the socialization around me and how I should probably involve myself. I eventually had to put the Post-Its away, pop open a can of piss water beer, and be normal. The remainder of the night went well. There were plenty of laughs and for a good hour or so, life seemed to right itself. John and I came home with sticky marshmallow fingers and campfire smoke embedded in the jeans we never wanted to wash. I got ready for bed, and John, being the vampire he is, looked for a background noise movie to play while he crafted. Then he received the text from my father – a brief message that would hurl my universe into a wood chipper that at least wasn’t turned on at that moment.

Mom was in the hospital. Her glucose was coma-level. There was something on her pancreas. I didn’t know where the hell the pancreas was or what it did. But I never imagined I would develop a violent hatred towards an internal organ no one really thinks or cares about…

A Kmart Story – when all other musings fail, write about a dying department store

Tara A. Lesko - Writer

I’m about to get off-the-chain sappy over a store famous for its blue light specials and kids’ shoes that fell apart after one venture through the mud — K-mart. Now, I’m not going to beg you to stay with me through this because at this time in the 21st century — the age of nosediving retail, overrated human interaction, inconvenient hard copies, and sacrificial privacy — you may be thinking why should anyone care about an obsolete department store that had a long, prosperous life? Time to sprinkle its ashes in the sea of Baby Boomer/Gen X nostalgia. But if you hear me out, you may look at classic retail Meccas from a different angle.

Recently, New Jersey news sources announced the closing of several more Sears and Kmart stores. Both retail outlets have been on the edge of collapse for years, falling into the depths of obscurity with other classics such as Toys R Us, Blockbuster Video, Caldor, and Crazy Eddies. The latest Kmart slated to close in April is in West Long Branch, seconds away from Eatontown, where I grew up.

Maybe it’s another bipolar-ish, midlife crisis thing, but I find myself to be remarkably depressed over this. The last Kmart I walked into was in West Orange in 2018. I think I needed a feminine product a-sap, and it was the cheapest place closest to my job at the time. Regardless, I can’t help but feel, yet again, a significant factor that contributed to my upbringing is being taken from me.

Trips to Kmart with my parents were some of the earliest bonding times I can remember at this point. Here is what I have. This is what the 2020’s are not going to take away from me.

I have the shopping trips when I would hide underneath the round clothing racks and annoy the hell out of my mother.

I have the kiddie pool I picked up with my Dad, how it barely fit in the back seat of his red Buick, how I sat underneath its blue plastic on the way home like it was a canopy keeping the sun from heating the faux white leather seats.

I have the school clothes that were put on layaway, the agony of waiting to wear them, the anguish over being made fun of because they came from K-mart.

Mom purchased random water guns and action figures for my brother and I just because we were significantly better behaved than most of the other kids in the store.

But I also have the time when I wandered too far away from my mother, cried for a cashier to call for her over the intercom, only to see her blonde, blue-eyed, porcelain face smiling at me seconds later. No matter what, she knew how to find and save us.

Kmart was a time for friends too. I’d go shopping with my friends and their mothers once in a while, and I’d stare in awe at their different shopping habits. For a brief amount of time, Kmart wasn’t synonymous with particular classes of people. Everyone shopped there. But much like the Walmarts of today, Kmart shoppers often made it clear where they stood in life by what they bought, how they shopped for it, and why they thought they needed it.

Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman — “Kmart sucks.”

I have the kick-ass snack bar! Yes, Kmarts had snack bars at one point. I’m not 100% sure the snack bar was that great, but to this day, there are few things that give me more joy than eating bad food wrapped in foil or plastic. Plus, I relished every moment of dining out with my mother — no matter if it was day-old, K-mart hot dogs or gloriously glutoness diner food, Jersey represent!

I miss shopping with my grandmother and great-grandmother for dog food, paper goods, and pre-teen board games like “Girl Talk”. I miss when my grandmother conversed with cashiers like they were human beings. She noticed and embraced every layer of people that way.

I have the fact that my parents met on a blind “date” at the same Kmart in Dover. Actually, my grandmother and my dad worked together at one point, and grandma thought my dad would be interested in my mom. So she planned to take my mom shopping. They were to meet “by chance” at the entrance of the store, and my dad (being absolutely no different than most guys on this planet) did a drive-by to see if mom was worth getting out of the car. Well, you’re reading this, so you know how that went. He stole a couple sodas from the unattended snack bar, they sat at a booth, and the rest is history. That Kmart closed in the early 2000’s, and the building was torn down about a year ago. There’s a photo of the rose my dad tied to the fence surrounding the rubble.

Overall, stores, restaurants, parks, and neighborhoods shape who we are in a lot of ways. When we have to see them fall apart, another piece of a simpler time goes down with the steel and concrete. There is nothing I wouldn’t give to get back one more Kmart day with the family. There is nothing I wouldn’t give to get back a lot of things. For now, I will thank God that my non-existent short term memory will keep my long-term memory shining and spinning like those blue lights.

I’m now on the Gram ;) and there’s a bunch of new handmade journals, postcards, and necklaces in my shop!

Tara A. Lesko - Writer

#taraannwatt -Instagram name

My Shop – http://www.etsy.com/shop/TheForgottenWord My book

I feel like I say I’m going to keep all of my stuff up-to-date, but then I don’t, or I’m doing something else on another platform. It’s nuts, and I can’t keep up between teaching and being back in grad school. But here I am, a college-lifer, workaholic, writer/artist in between doing the best I can to stay committed to my creative pursuits. Thank you WordPress and all the WordPressers who try to follow me. You’ve all been very good to me. Love & light ❤️🍟🙏🏻 My shop😊 #creativity #art #writing #writerslife #time #books #etsy #instagram