Self Pity

Faith is locked
I cannot find it for the anger
that swells and threatens to choke me.
I’ve had enough and no longer care
who’s life is worse than mine.
Don’t give a damn about
the comparison of suffering that I was taught
and have carried with me
since I was small:
Someone else is suffering more
and thus diminishes my suffering
and makes it bearable.
Right now it is unbearable and
I want to feel each prick and sting of it.
My suffering.
My own.
And I want to rail Heaven
And conjure Doubt
And keep Faith at bay.
I want to savor it,
stroke it like a favored pet.
It is one of the few things I own outright.
I feign surprise at how low
this small but painful blow has brought me,
but that is self deception.
I am always on the cusp of Despair
and have always relied on the Grace
of the suffering of others to keep me from falling.
Perhaps when I am done
with grinding this glass
into my wounds
I will be able to remember the sacrifice
their suffering has made for me
and crawl back with gratitude
to Hope.
Their offering upon the altar
of my self absorption
a Eucharist, salvation for my transgression,
transforming their pain
in to my
Resurrection.

The Rings

After three weeks
The ridges from the rings
Barely there
The finger had almost forgotten
Being bound for
A quarter of a century
She was surprised
That she had not remembered
To put them back on
For she had not forgotten,
She never forgot,
That she had said yes
That he had said yes
And they had encircled themselves
With each other
And somewhere beyond pleasure
Beyond safety and comfort
They had agreed
Not to be turned from this entanglement

She had thrown the rings once
When they were at an impasse
Somehow they had drawn on their agreement
And found a way back
Or fought a way back
It didn’t matter which
They proved that they could repair broken pieces
Make a new whole

She slipped the rings on and off
And on again,
Trying them on other fingers,
The prince searching for the right foot
But they only ever fit the one
That ran to her heart
She left them there
Like Cinderella wore the slippers
Even though she had the prince

The Trees Are Late This Year

The trees are late this year
I know this because
I grew here
And by the time my birthday would come,
As October waned and the rains fell
they would have shed their colors
to make a sloppy yellow red carpet on the ground
But the days are passing
and the leaves remain the same

The local news explains it all:
the science of the leaves
that refuse to turn
assuring us that they will,
in their own time,
just when the conditions are right
What if they don’t?
What if they are waiting for something else?
Perhaps they are willing themselves to remain the same
Refusing to change despite expectations
If they never change
I’m sure the news will inform us
We wouldn’t want to miss
Something that didn’t happen

Lost Memory

There was a moment
When I saw something
A detail
And I was going to write it down
And describe it
So that anyone who hadn’t seen it
Hadn’t lived it
Would know it
Just by the words I chose
Like I had some comic book superpower
And you could be inside of me
And know what I knew
All because I could choose the right words
In the right order
Pluck them out of the mist
Or my brain or my soul or wherever words live
And drape them just so
Upon a page
But so many things happened
Between that moment and this
That I can’t even tell myself
What I saw
Now it will be a secret forever
From everyone.

Safe

A sheet of dark
wraps around the heart,
slip knotted anger
keeps it snug.
We like the fit
of things that hold us
swaddled like
our early infant days,
never outgrow our
desire for the safety
of the known
and thus
we stay where love has died
or pain has grown or
disappointment breeds the twins of
self and other loathing
or
we let dark resentments build
because
courage
cannot be summoned
from within
the heart
cradled in the familiar.