you were never a constant presence yet…

I could not escape your embrace

you were always towering over everything

nothing was sacred

your rancid touch soured everything

...I was curdled by the intensity of your love

Tiptoeing across the tightrope between love and lust. A fickle yearning for yesterday's flame burns glistening scars onto supple flesh. Eyelashes laced with abandoned memories whisper a longing for ghosts of past.

Plunging off the precipice into a cascade of passion.

Enamored by the palms of your hands desperately trying to read our future together. Sifting through the Tarot cards of love. Eavesdropping as Aphrodite whispers allegations of romance.

All the while disillusioned gods mock my delight……...

dancing around the fire

drawn to the flickering flames

eliciting terror yet

embracing it like a ravenous lover

melting into the familiar comfortable arms

plunging deeper into the depths and

finding my home in the burning embers

and smoldering coals

rising

a phoenix

His glasses on the bedside table. His lingering smell on the pillow. His clothes hanging limply in the closet. His old worn, leather billfold on the foyer table. All the reminders of a life lived.

She examined the room bewildered at all the necessities of life. Everything suddenly hollowed in appearance without the man who needed them. But the glasses kept staring at her. How could he see? He was never without them. She laid down with her head on his pillow wishing she could bottle and distill his scent. The essence of him. She wrapped herself in his shirt. Oh how she needed one last hug.

Her worst fear had been realized. She was alone. The house that had been full of the echoes of children’s laughter, yells, fighting, and screams had long been empty of that noise. It had been the two of them for so long. A comfortable silence. Now it was deafening. She thought about those cold, snowy nights when she used to shovel just to enjoy the weighty stillness and now she realized all the time she wasted. All that strung out before her were a series of unending quiet days and nights.

The phone had long stopped ringing. Everyone had stopped checking in. They had moved on with the course of their lives as was the natural way of things. She never blamed them. How many times had she been guilty of the same sin.

She moved to put away his glasses but stopped herself. What if he still needed them she thought as she slipped into the welcoming arms of sleep.

babies were my secret

to protect

nurture

grow

tethered by a gossamer umbilical cord

sliding from my stomach

wailing their welcome to the world

"Remembering who I am."

My Prose bio was written for myself. To harness that 22 year old girl who set out to conquer the world with nothing but words and sheer determination. The innocence of raw, unfiltered emotions. The unflappable gumption that coursed through my veins. To revive a world wary, soul and make myself whole again.

In college, my friend told me if someone hands you a pair of scissors it means they want to fight. I can only imagine the amount of accidental wars started via scissors. Our mothers always tell us not to run with scissors but why don't they tell us not to hand someone scissors?

What if the great tragedies of our times could have been avoided if someone had just set the pair of scissors on the floor and walked away? Could we have world peace by now?

All I know is I'll never hand anyone a pair of scissors. You never bring a pair of scissors to a gunfight!

A glass of wine, jazz pouring through the shitty speakers of the only stereo you could afford, the candle light the only illumination. You were the only person who existed in the whole world. Watching shadows dance across the room like a long lost lovers hands dancing across her body. She sighed and took another sip of the wine as Ella’s voice crooned through the speakers.

She didn’t belong here. He had brought her here. It was their love that had brought her to this place. She was of a different world, a different time.

Everyday she made the commute to work on the crowded trolly. Everyday she left feeling slightly less sure of her authenticity. She looked around the trolly, everyone looked right through her. She went to work, she spent the day talking, then left.

On Sunday, she tested her voice to make sure it still worked. To see if she was still alive. But the darkness always came, and with a sigh she closed her eyes succumbing to the ritual death of sleep.

Bless me father for I have been wronged.

I spent years modeling myself as the Martyr of Marriage. The Madonna of Motherhood. Always the saint, refuting my sins. Kneeling for confession. Asking for absolution in the eyes of our friends. Spouting the liturgy of the wronged wife. Abiding by the holy scripture of the divorce decree.

Bless me father for I have been wronged.