Today you wield a power
Yet holding me rapt,
A sick acrimony
Reigning upon my head
Through the will that does not prevail
Against the years that have passed
Between gates of rings and promise,
And files long locked away
In their prisons of justice.

Treading on the thin ice of belief
That defies both fact and fancy;
Slinging accusations long ago,
Void of life or even reason.
There remains a thread of horror
Clinging to the fibers of
The veil in your grasp,
Smothered in the breadth of your grip
As if substance can be given
Despite the fraying edges of
Love proclaimed and fortitude.

How long does your reach extend,
That pain and suffering should follow
A path taken only in the rationale
Of your battered psyche;
Dust of the woman who abandoned
The small boy crying on the steps
And no one to let him in -
Wives, since, who have left the door
Open all night
While you did not come home.

My arms, in ages past, stretched taught
To gather your fractured remnants,
The process severing
My reluctant heart,
Which finally sought solace on fairer planets
Where rage did not abound,
And trust blossomed under kinder suns.

Today your reproach cannot penetrate
The tenuous distance I have traveled
To escape you,
Though you did consume more peace
Than I offered,
And I shall not again find kindness
To meter on your behalf -
The sound of closing doors
Echoing long into a future
Where yours is a silence
Null of substance.

03/21/2008

Author's Note: Time and pressure from past relationships rarely yield diamonds...

Posted on 03/21/2008
Copyright © 2025 Alison McKenzie