Love led her here

She rocks gently,
to and fro, to and fro…
days of long labor
and eight children lie in her wrinkles.
She recalls with a tear
the way that life changes
and she pities those
who strive to control the uncontrollable,
which is just about everything.
She remembers the day
she saw his towering figure approach,
felt her heart in her throat
as she fell in love.
She fingers the charm around her neck
that once symbolized
their love and commitment,
a circle that she could not break.
She stares at her arm
and the scar above the right elbow
and recalls how he threw her from
their moving station wagon in 1964.
She cringes at the helplessness she felt
as he raped and ravaged her shaking body,
Christmas morning, 1970,
as their eight children played downstairs.
She regrets the way that she allowed herself
to be belittled, degraded, humiliated
over and over again for 40 years.
But what could a woman do?
Then it was her duty, her fault, her silent secret.
She stuck it out, raised their kids best she could
and saw her youngest baby through college.
Then she took what little she had;
a picture and frame, a tattered bible,
and the ounce of pride she kept hiding.
She left him, his cruel ways,
and the hell that love had led her to.

Dust in the corners

You’re always there,
like the dust
in the tiniest corner of my bedroom
that no amount of cleaning
can quite reach.
Lurking…
you watch me,
silent
you wait for me to find you.
I don’t have to look
because I can feel you there
always.
I just prefer to pretend
that you are gone
out of the corners of my heart
off the pages of my mind
and that I can live wholly
without you
someday.

Letter

I mailed you a letter today
no stamp or return address.
I’m guessing it will end up in the
same pile as those marked
to santa claus or the easter bunny.
That’s ok with me.
I had to send it.
Your silence is a deafening defense
and I had to break it,
had to have the last word,
regardless of whether you
know I did or not.
I asked all the questions
I was never brave enough
to speak.
I told you all of the things
I yearned to scream
all of these years.
I laid it all out there
as if I was letting you go
and not vice versa.
Yet, when I closed,
I still signed it with
love
for I knew no other way
to end it.

Playground

Shortly after midnight her eyes shut and the nurse gave us the nod. Her pain was over. Ours had just begun. I wondered out the house, through the dimly lit streets of a town I once called my own. Everything I saw had a piece of her etched upon it. I had barely a memory of my childhood without her in it. I found myself at the playground we had practically grown up on, running my fingers down the cold steel slide. It felt like the hand I had held in mine minutes ago, blue and lifeless. This was never just a slide to us. It was a mountain, an escape route, a secret passage, a trap door shoot to another world…the only limit of this slide was our imagination. I sat upon the middle swing. I always had to have the middle swing and she would be on my right side. I wish I would’ve given her the middle swing once in awhile. She would’ve loved being the center of attention for a moment or two.

If I closed my eyes, I could hear the laughter of 8 year olds ringing throughout the gray sky that surrounded me. I could almost hear her calling my name as we jumped off the swings, into the air and raced towards the merry-go-round. “Wait for me, Sissy!” she would exclaim as we leapt aboard the spinning monster that we thought was a time machine. So many times I should’ve stopped and waited for her. Instead, I ran ahead and landed in places across the world, while she waited for me to return home and tell her of my adventure. I never realized how the adventure would’ve been so much greater if she had been at my side the entire time, instead of waiting here. She should’ve made her own adventures across the globe, or even the galaxy!

But then again, some days I think her adventures far surpassed mine. For she had adventures I would never know of a child growing inside her, love at first sight the day he was born, and the trials and pride she felt while watching him sprout into a real live boy. It made sense to me now. I was always Indiana Jones and she wouldn’t go anywhere without her doll. Feeding it, loving it and protecting it from whatever monsters or aliens or evil demons we came across. She was meant to be a mother. She was so good at it. More than I could ever be. Now, with her passing, I had no choice but to be a mother to her little boy and hope I don’t fail either of them miserably. And I must keep my promise that I will always bring him to our playground.

string cheese

he peels my heart apart
like strips of string cheese
he can devour for an afternoon snack.

Inside

Inside is where I want to stay
inside your heart
your mind
your arms
where it is safe and warm.
flesh on flesh
your breath on my cheek
your kiss on my lips
your hand on my hip.
it is here,
while you sleep next to me,
that I feel most alive.

Sold

I choke on your exhaust
and the words that drip,
slick like oil,
from your tongue.
Your eyes are smudged
and glassed over,
incapable of the tears
that could cleanse the hurt away.
I don’t believe blood runs
through your veins anymore
just a cold, black sludge
that houses all the deceit you sold.
The excuses, the lies, the hollow I love you’s…
I bought and swallowed it whole.
Sold!!
to the biggest sucker…
me.