free-verse – Page 14

Sheila Take a Bow

I wish I could sit with you there
gray day, long oak table
the kind of music we used to like
or I liked
and you liked me
so you listened

I would seem out of place
in my Smiths shirt
and pegged jeans
but no matter
I'd look you in the face
the way I should have done

Say things long overdue:
you mattered
I loved you
more than you knew

Everything

Everything I want, need
is available today
for the low, low price
of letting go

Deep Down

I hate it when I know things deep down
Those are the things I don't want to know

Why do I never know deep down that I
need to eat more strawberry tarts?
Crawl into your bed?
Drive to the airport, buy the ticket to Paris
Denpasar?

It is always this stuff:
Choose self-respect over perpetual disappointment
Take myself home before I weep in the market
Get up and hold the world together

Repetition Compulsion

Freud said
we recreate the unresolved
so there's no surprise 
you're back at it

But here's a bright spot:
something in me is free
of my old story
and I don't have to play

Surrender

I've heard
this little life of mine
is better lived
in direct proportion
to my willingness
to surrender to you

You've heard
how crazy this sounds
to ears like mine
instructed never
ever ever
to give in

Ask

I asked the unanswerable question
and felt the weight of it
between us

We do not know
we imagine
some days we even hope

What lies ahead
only mystery

Survivor Guilt

I am grateful
I'm not the one you're talking over
defending the hurtful
oblivious thing you said

I am relieved
I'm not the one waiting
for your call, your text
your definition of the relationship

But I rest uneasy
I'm not the one batting back tears
wondering how much life
I've wasted wanting you

End

It is the end of our beginning.
Winston Churchill

I shudder to think it
This transformation is 
more than I know the
heart can take. The end
of me, of this, of
us is here, and our
death is the beginning

This Feeling

Surrender, necessary
Give myself now
to the unknown, unknowable

Wait!  I remember this feeling!

Ten years old at the high dive's edge
only one thing to do:
leap

Today

Set every soul and story down
including your own

Let each of the world's cares sit idle
untroubled by your efforts to right them

If stitching together is needed
other hands will do the mending

Feel the weight slip from your shoulders
The earth is strong enough to hold you