You were working on your bicycle.
moving the pedals at a soothing pace
watching the gears turn
one to the next.
Visible.
Understood.
Rational.
Safe.
You were whistling
while I wept for you.
Last night
you came at me with all the vengeance
all the fear
all the shame
that comes of living
and you asked me to hold on.
I did
And we knocked about the place
me riding your back
and heels dug in
while you
bucked and wheeled
and tried to throw me.
Our demons were playing triple-time
While we danced a maniacal waltz.
This morning I woke up torn wide open.
The back of my neck aches
and I am raw to the bone.
And I don’t have the strength
to piece me back together again.
You keep asking me to hold you together with one hand
so that you can live half a life
while I struggle
to get up
clean the kitchen
make the bed
and take a shower.
I’m not such a fool, though,
to think I have no claim here in this misery.
critical, overbearing, self-involved, insecure
as I am.
I get my kicks from watching you squirm
by bending your will to my own
so that I can prove that I exist.
I’ve had you on a chain so tight
you are afraid to walk out of the door
for fear I will yank you back and yell in your face.
I know it’s two here
doing the dirty work.
So we are left with
a pile of ashes made from words
aimed with careful precision
and thoughtless actions taken
to deaden the sense of living.
but I won’t live a dead life.
I can’t life a life without feeling.
not even for you.
We planned to sit Sunday mornings
on the front porch glad for each other’s company.
No words spoken.
We thought we would raise our children
to be conscious and strong,
kind and whole.
We promised to stand side by side
and walk through the world together.
Instead we sit here at the kitchen table
with seven empty years hanging between us.
Maybe we should have bought a shiny new house
with a master bathroom the size of Utah.
We could have filled it with bedroom dressers
and stylish couches,
matching dishes
and cotton sheets.
We could have pretended we’d been young. foolish. Full
of unrealistic delusions
of ideological propaganda and
happily ever after.
Reality is so hard to come by.
and open heart surgery
is a very delicate operation indeed.
a slip of the hand
a twitch of the eye
and the whole thing is slashed to pieces.
Copyright 2006 by the Tipton Poetry Journal.
All rights remain the exclusive property of the individual poet and may not be used without their permission.