I waited a lifetime to be lied to by you
To be held close and told I was always the one
My hat’s off to you, for you studied me well
Alone, and again abused, by my best friend
Forgive me, My Love, but I am slow to learn
This was all a mistake, surely you’ll come to say
I’ve been holding my breath, certain you will return
Does the Universe want me to stop waiting, Dear?
Brought your A-game, the victory, yours
Punted away the ball, nothing to lose?
Found a penny, pockets so full
Left it laying to corrode, not worth wishing upon?
Rose, like no other, name you dreamed of
Loved with abandon, but for her thorns?
Find you she will, she who’s your own
Knot unending, what prayer will find you?
You’ve mistaken me
Forgotten I’d told you
My childhood day-to-days fuel me still
Hope beyond reason
Vision despite the midnight blue
These ever-present gifts to me
I’ve years to your Days
In your all-knowing, understand this
You’ve nothing to give
That I haven’t got
These aches
These pains
These days
I promise
I won’t
I don’t
My mind
My body
My thoughts
Remain mine
Remain His
Remain forever
The sliver of time before I became tragic
Was it a wicked serpent’s word
Some desired autonomy
This devotion to husband and child?
Think with me honestly
What of heart’s protracted pain
Is my sweet apple affinity
My downfall?
Never mind the what-you-thoughts
Heralding your head’s blessed energies
Let dance to freedom on blackbird wing
Every “Why?” upon your lips
Will you listen with unmeasured courage
And stay, as cello notes, when doubt encircles you?
What man, after all, needs to glance up from bed and find gauze curtains with crochet flowers blocking the morning light
When is there any right time to feel the frustration of taking to task offspring, not his own
Why, I ask, would he ask for the bounty of trouble, help, and honest beauty She brings to the table, when there’s plenty of “elseness” on his plate
Who’d wish for a real-live helpmate when the workshed walls are already perfectly papered with such willing hands
Where is there any avenue he’d daydream for a walk, anyway
Oh, love
They were both tall and brunette
And, also like me, with child(ren)
Gentle in purpose, were we
We three moved through our space with womanly grace
Believing and knowing life was bigger than us
And yet, still, we seemed bigger than life
That day I felt my foot slip, I stumbled so slightly
My sister in her mind, offered assistance to me
She and I noticed your absence of hand
Upon her, the higher, we felt your eyes land
What was it, we wondered, you’d hoped to achieve
Moving your heart from the woman who’d believed
In you
Give back all the Days
The time my eyes covered you
Not seeing your Love
What the dust
My front doorstep littered
In layers of bravado, force-fields
And might
As if the guardians decided
My heart, prone to thieving
Had stolen their swords
Then taken their jobs
So they quietly left in the night?
