a vacation week, obviously.
My life goes by, a book of little boxes
Penciled names and times containing
No hint of the stories–
The sorrows, compulsions, memories, grief,
The rage, depression, drugs, abuse. . .
Just little boxes filled with names and times. I wish they
Left no mark on me but
They do.
I witness the stories. I hold the box of secrets. I hear the songs
street rap full of fuck you
ukulele ballads spun out of loss
Some are just broken poetry scratched on arms
or tattooed names of stillborn children.
I take those stories and weave them into new tapestries
I make them fiction and in that world
my alter ego kills rapists and imprisons pedophiles
patrols the streets of my imagination making them safer
A big Rottweiler by her side and a gun in her hand.
In real life I pass a box of tissues. It’s
Never enough but I guess
It’s better than no one knowing the stories
at all.
