You Were

After the dust settles and the remote hits the floor, as you bend over and pick up the broken pieces of the coffee table and patch up the hole in the wall you wonder why you didn't notice this all before.  Its not like there were surprises, at least after a while.  No amber flashing lights.  He got up and went into the kitchen and made himself a sandwich like it was no big deal but whenever you tried to talk about what happened he exploded straight to the moon like a rocket, took a grocery list out of his pocket and itemized things you made up from whole cloth.

He smiles at the waitress when she brings our sandwiches and stares right at the V made by her blouse and her tits as he holds your hand and tells you you're the smartest woman in the world.  He cradled your son in his arms and sang him nursery songs while he cruised the internet for porn and hookers and told another woman how desparately he yearned for his cock in her cunt while your breasts leaked all over the pastel sheets.  He tells you he'll never love again as he climbs in the back seat of the white lexus with her and there never was a promise he made that he didn't break, not ever.

Its not supposed to be this way, love is meant to be shared, you support each other and hold one another up, put sugar in his coffee and get the special kind of cheese he likes because you want him to feel special.  So you mop up the spilled juice on the kitchen floor and you hang a picture on the wall at that spot where you can see its been repaired and you laugh gaily as you tell everyone how happy you are and how the chemistry is so great and don't you make beautiful children together?  And when the children are asleep and he is sitting in the blue light of his computer looking at the thin women with inflated breasts and their airbrushed mons you lie in bed and the hot tears melt your pillow to a soggy ruin and you remember how good it used to feel when you could take a sharp knife and cut open the skin on your arms and your thighs but you lived alone then and no one would notice and you don't think you can explain that to your children so you clench your fists until your nails go through your palm and try not to make any noise while you sob and the snot and the saliva make salt soup.

A sound jolts you to your senses.  You have been sleepwalking in a room full of chairs wrapped in cotton and sheets, trying to peer out windows so warped with age that everything looks as if it belongs in a funhouse mirror.  You have been eating dust from backs of your hands and turning over the ashtrays looking for butts.  You found a sunflower made of plastic and you put water in a vase and set it on the mantel so it would look pretty, but suddenly you hear the slam and the glass shatters and the veil falls away and you see you have been playing house in the abbatoir, the curtains are all carcass and entrails and the carpet is concrete stained with blood, you slip in it when you try to run.

They all look at you like you're crazy when you try to explain you were escaping and that's why you were driving so fast.  No one believes you and when he starts saying how you were controlling him the whole time and everything you did forced him to be the way he was you start to not believe yourself either.   You busy yourself with the dishes and the dusting and the yard work and try not to meet eyes with your accusers and you begin to believe that they may be right after all.

You will stand in front of the jury and someone else will tell your story while your mouth is sewn shut and you'll eat what's put in front of you and you will like it, dammit, because I'm your mother that's why.
You were put together like a quilt made of feathers and leaves, holes let the sunlight through and then the rain and the wind blew it all to pieces.  You try to pick up the scattered pieces of yourself and everytime you get a fist full you drop one and you don't have anywhere to set down what you're holding so you drop it on the table as you head to the laundry room to look for a basket.  Except he took the laundry basket when he left so everything drops to the floor and you start over again, just as you were.

Fuck if I know

You place your hand on the flat part of my back

while I bend over the counter
(reading something)
Sensation of heat from your palm
(just north of the crack of my ass)
Juices flow
Right now, on the floor,  I want you
I don't even know if you understand
what happens
when you touch me
(or sometimes when I even think about you touching me)
I am not
even
sure
I understand it.
But there it is.

Waking

As the early light creeps past the beige bedroom drapes
and makes its insistent march ever upward toward the striped comforter,
I blink the sleep from my eyes
Fading remnants of something I was dreaming
Linger on the tip of my subconscious
Igniting the fire of anxiety in my center
I try desperately to remember what I dreamt
but the memory has already begun to seep out of mind
I feel anxious restless, encumbered, disjointed
You are sound asleep
I am hesitant
I don't want to wake you, but I need to let your touch
banish the dream
I reach over and lightly touch your hand
Instantly you reach across the acres of bed between us
and pull me close to you, sling your hip over mine
cover my lips with yours
wrap your warmth around me
Fires ignite
(they always do)
Reassurance becomes an exploration becomes a slow fire
becomes a dance of lips and tongues and teeth
You cover me with you
Fill me with you
As the sun reaches out and pulls its lazy self over the lip of the horizon
we welcome the day
as one