Today a co-worker of mine was sentenced
to two years in the Broward C.I.,
a 62-year-old woman serving time,
repeat offender of a D.U.I.
and instantly I am flooded with thoughts
of you, alone in a cell with nothing more
to lose than pieces of a heart battered
and bruised, though slowly attempting to heal
and I think of how easily it could have been any one of us
behind that wheel, too stubborn to admit, too numb
to feel that we’'d really had too much, gone
way past the point of losing touch, innocence
lost in an empty bottle. It’s not enough
to say that we’'ve made a mistake, no way
to give back that which takes away,
only pray for the soul that sits and waits,
a young man looking forward,
an old woman looking away
from the ugly face of an unforgiving past,
diminishing strength that was meant to last.
There’s a fire inside, flame purple, still burning
though the mind and body deteriorate with yearning
for a better day, a moment free of judgment
where the truth tends to lay like an open road,
a reminder that there is a way, and if you are patient
enough it will take you back to a place called home
where friends are not forgotten and words mean nothing
in the face of how you feel. It’s real
how just one moment can completely change
a life—, subtract one, add another—
take away love and replace it with strife.

Don’t let it break you—
be the blade, not the knife.


M.B.
7.12.05

08/05/2005

Posted on 08/05/2005
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