I feel the vibration
reverberating down my back
drilling between shoulder blades
pushing at my temples.
Simple questions
snarky answers.
Simple expectations
superior refusals.
Patience is very thin
The end of the rope has frayed
Consequences?
Here’s a tent.
and a sleeping bag,
if you’d prefer?
The massage will work
out the kinks,
settle the tension,
return balance,
but when I’m back,
you’ll still be here,
sending out those vibrations
that are breaking down
my nervous system.
In the hidden folds
a tiny desire rests,
A covert longing,
unacknowledged.
You sense it’s there
a tiny, unseen lump,
caught in the fibres
of your life.
You ignore it,
though you feel it
nudging
incessantly.
You keep it secret.
Until finally
you must pick at it,
stretch threads apart,
catch a corner,
then pulling,
and pulling,
and pulling,
like a silk scarf
from a magician’s wand,
more,
more,
more,
until the room is filled
with the vivid kaleidoscope of colour
the billowing
reality of your unspoken dreams
coming true.
What if
just for today
you dared to do
that thing you fear?
What if
just for today
whenever you
wanted to say no,
you opened yourself
to yes?
What if
today was the day
when everything
changed?
Oh, back row,
You’re so cool.
Won’t do your school work.
Hang out at the smoke pit.
Drunk all weekend.
You’re
so
cool.
The front row
gets its work done,
laughs with friends,
finds healthy fun.
They will graduate,
get into college
and employ you
at minimum wage.
It’s never cool
to peak in
high school.
Of course ghosts are real
Haven’t you felt them
swirling about you
like leaves in the wind?
Memories that haunt
spinning through your head
with joys and sorrows
that have no place in
tomorrow.
Usually
I have patience to tolerate
your negative energy.
I can listen to your whining
self-indulgence
without comment.
I can ignore your
ignorance, and gently
try to inform you.
But right now,
my world is a storm
of negativity, raining from
despots, thieves, and liars
who have too much power over my life.
I am holding up a very small umbrella
to hold off the stress.
If you blow that negative air at me,
you will turn my umbrella inside out
and so you’ll excuse me
if I leave you
standing in the rain
by yourself.
In dead of winter
when I am bundled in sweaters,
nursing hot chocolate
and shivering,
I will remember
sliding open the back door today
and how I was hit with a wall of air
so hot my finger tips feel
they’re glowing like ET’s.
In the meantime,
I’m grateful for a/c
and find typing with
molten finger tips
very interesting.
.
.
.
Oh Christy,
who was the teacher
who provoked you?
Who was the teacher
who shredded your confidence,
made you feel powerless,
alone,
stupid?
.
Who?
.
For surely somewhere,
you sustained a deep hurt
that is still a festering wound,
that causes you to lash out
like an injured dog,
irrationally,
deflecting your pain with today’s power.
Some time ago,
there was a hurt,
that we are paying for.
.
Christy,
A counselor
would be cheaper.
.
.
.
It’s just a theory. But it would explain a lot.
You told the kids
he was useless, stupid, weak.
You bullied him
into believing it himself.
You kicked him
out the door, and mocked his
adoring devotion to you.
You didn’t deserve him
and now someone better
has discovered a treasure.
So while you sleep
from man to man,
like the good Christian woman
you always claimed to be,
your kids now see what
you had blinded them to.
That kind, loving man
is finally getting the relationship
he deserves.
.
.
,
Just heard yet another story of some woman abusing her kind-hearted man, and I had a flashback. Excuse the rant. (cough).
I want you.
Despite all the objections,
inspections, rejections,
imperfections,
my predilection
is you.
.
.
.
Just think all the things the poet could be addressing here. Is the ‘you’ a lover, a baby, a puppy, a great pair of shoes…? 😉 What is your predilection?
Shawn L. Bird 