Inevitability

The defense has become the obstacle
I cannot give it up
it is giving me up
it is waving goodbye
it has become boring
please please please
it has become boring
I look out of the bus window and I see
houses and a golf course
not ready
keeps rattling at the gate
let me kiss you 
goodbye

After the Rain

We are one day past forever

so let me tell you a

story

full of hope and

recrimination

and yet somehow                   

somehow

            hello hello                    fire in the hole

I wonder

but I cannot get past the bluster

the suggestion dripping down my throat

We tried but

            this is not what I

kiss me good night

            as forgiveness winds around my

could we just

            a lie must never be hunted

when the game is already dead to me

I could tell you a story

full of tomorrows and redemption

but who would we be

kidding

acceptance is the poison

In this lexicon of sorrow

I am too tired to speak for myself

if you saw miracles spring from darkness

I saw only memory

swathed in charcoal dusty

dream

Murk

No road led to anywhere safe.  I could never again be either my mother’s punching bag or Christine’s project, to compensate for all of the failure in their own lives.  Nor could I divorce Rick.  Whatever or whoever he was, my soul—my entire being—had merged with his.  It was ludicrous to think I could leave him now.  To leave Rick would require me to kill the last part of me that still clung to life.

And yet neither could I just carry on.  Each choice I made, each breath I took, led to disaster.  I no longer believed in the future.  I wasn’t even sure I believed in love anymore—at least, not the redemptive kind.  All I did know was that I felt like a shattered piece of china glued back together one too many times.  I had no idea who or what to trust, who to blame, or who to forgive.  But the terrified child inside of me refused to be silenced.  She would not leave me be.

The truth could no longer be avoided.  I was damaged beyond repair.  This time there would be no gluing me back together again.

*From my novel The Dragon in the Elevator, revised and soon to be re-published.

Closed

You think you know.  You can never know.  You will never know anything other than a name that means nothing to you.  You are trapped in the network.  The hallway has no exit.  The bicycle has no wheels.  If you step outside of the red lines there is nothing to stand on.  You will fall.  You will fall, and you will not even remember how to scream.  But it won’t matter.  Because no one would hear you if you did.  

Witness

time is a monster          asleep under the carpet

so easy to trip up on                   to cover in never

with purples and yellows      not just for pictures

but her yesterday sees

her tomorrow remembers

Knowledge

For the first time since my marriage, the dragon visited my dreams.  As we stood facing each other in the meadow I could never paint, I told him, “You were right.  I don’t love them.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.  “I hope you don’t feel responsible.”

“The worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves.  But, please—do you know who he is?”

“Of course.  So do you.”

My shoulders slumped.  “I knew you wouldn’t tell me.  I’m just so tired.”

“Then wake up,” the dragon answered.  “You’ve been asleep long enough.”

I opened my eyes.  When I looked over at Rick, he was sleeping soundly next to me.  It was almost morning.

Shadows

silence a mocking foe

I was waiting where did you go        

you cannot say and I         I just do not know

from way over there

you do not echo anywhere

I am so

lost

the deadliest place is

no place new 
at all