Long Past Death
It is not just because you hurt me till my bones
cracked, shattered, crushed and spun into particles of dust
Lies singe and I’m still on fire – burning enough to last
long past death… About what you did and where
you’d been? I’d pretend, pretend and pretend that love
would win (in the end) like on a wide-screen, tuned
to the happy-forever-after channel, I shake awake,
like a horse, pace in a race - cool off, smoke rises from
my nostrils and eyes - my breath is yet, a dying flame...
Sure of everything, I gamble my addiction - went down
so low, I had a predilection - Found it wasn’t only you
to blame, I'd been cheating on myself, I'd become an
adulterous fool, denied myself a home, family and friends
all this; foreign and unknown And I, as your wife, your
perfect little wife, was it just to decorate my ear, to
pant and beg for you to mention I was, “your better half” ?
Your poisonous dose was my damned, self sacrifice
and nearly became my demise; I became a book
and testament, a thick and toxic substance, unfiltered -
oozed out of control…I cast aside poetic notions,
you had taught me well, to settle for less - less happiness
and much less love and kindness than I’d ever known
I convinced myself, if I were mute and never mentioned
how many times I wished you’d brush against my breasts
(like you did with those strange women) it would be
for the best, yes - be for the best and I could ignore the rest
On the edge of that long, hard road I held poems painted
with Magritte lines...they float away like me, in shadows
(I could still see you taking me for a ride) Remember the day
I was struck down by the sixteen-wheel truck in your
imagination? You - washing dishes, at the kitchen sink…
What a frightful, bloody mess, I’d become right before
your eyes Afterwards I was merely something you
stepped over on the way to the office. What does anyone
know of love anyway? Not I, no - not me, not me…I have
no degree and nothing to claim or declare. I'm but a painter
of dreams and you (even as a child) never dared to dream… you
were told “Dreams never come true , don’t waste your time son!”
Was I just a painter to you, whose brush is a slight brush
of destiny or the dreamer that dreams like a fool? I spent
years waiting for the day you would turn around, with starlight
in your eyes, and say, I love you…I am a painter of dreams, yes,
filling space and time, so don’t count on me, don’t count on me
to be the source of light in your darkest night
Deborah Russell
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