01.12.06

Once, on the other side
of so many long nights,
(summer,
smoke-filled restaurants
dancing
those other girls)
you stood with a belt in your hand.
That pain seared through me so completely
that i faltered,
could not stand when i told you,
No more.

I crossed a seven-year sea of bitterness and betrayal
to stand here beside your daughters.
No one took my hand.
Beautiful flowers bloom from suffering
but my roots are dry;
evanescent scraps of promises float fluffy
across an empty blue sky.

If you had known
how your hatred would grow,
making you monstrous in your cruelty,
would you have wanted me for your pet

i love my girls but still search the early morning
darkness
for that moment,
long long ago,
when i could have walked away,
never turning,
not even when you called
my name

01.12.06