She Took Me With Her

I wrote this piece several months ago, after a very special time with a very special friend




When she went, last night,
She threw closed a
Thousand doors and
And a phone lay crushed on the floor

It was a fire, big and wild
Of another's wood
That scorched, not warmed
And only a river of tears
Might put it to shame

She hushed me quiet
As she opened her window,
That i might see
A clenched passage

Unavoidable

We didn't speak
Or hold hands as
She guided me
To where her innocense
Had been sacrificed anew

In her hands of a child
She carried a sack of burnt offerings

I watched as they squirmed
And writhed to escape
Or perhaps, fight escape of
A resolve they underestimated

As silently I shadowed
And her child's fingers fisted,
The sun withdrew knowing
It had no place here

She sat me on a bench
And looked away as
She settled beside
My torn shell of helplessness

Then it began,
Just a tear, then a stream
Finally a river
As one by one
The bag was emptied.
She cried too

Purge,
First a history
That should never
Have been written,
Then a guilt, mindless
Of compassion

Next,
A horde of miscreants
Masquerading as love

Brothers, so called
That might have sheltered
But instead hid beneath her,
And a sister that might have loved
If only she knew how

Efforts,
To fix, explain-conceal
Music
That fell just one note short
Of true healing
And two wine glasses
That lied about forget

And finally,
Mothers
That never were
And weak, foolish fathers
Who never could be

And when at last

the bag was empty,
Swept away
In the dirty flood,
Then she took my hand

And it was no longer
A child's frightened squeeze
But rather the tender hold
Of a beautiful woman
Who would no longer

Carry other people's trash

To the curb

Then close, she let me draw her

as I kissed away her tears,

And her sweet face

Found my shoulder.

She let me hold her

Having learned her hurt

And she taught me love, again

The way it should be.

And when

There was no more to do

No more to cry

No reason to linger

-She let me walk her home

I liked that she took me

I like that we held

I like that love still lived

In a home of broken windows

And dirty linen

Where rats rule the cupboard

But I hate that her heart had to shatter

Once more

As purchase for me to learn

That her love is unbreakable