i once believed
in the infinite hands of time,
  the metronome beating
as a distant storm front bleeding tears
for others' sorrows,              
      never my own-

now, a crackling pulse, thundering across splitting fields, beckons;
          I fall on brittle knees,
the slash of biting steel
caresses my flesh; the lion's roar
unburdens my soul.

Gravitating to an unfamiliar tempo, thrashing from former convictions, my eyes cast upward
            peering through the womb
of a universe unborn,
           where destiny lay
    still fused between my teeth,
upon the soft palette
of newly christened
        beliefs-

    lightning blisters a design
(once ordained) into rubble
     the misaligned truths-
             of who I am
what purpose my hands preserve;
           where do these
unparalleled seasons lead?

       I resolve
                to follow the heart
toward a liberating chasm
of    
steadfast dreams
       it seems
                 my  journey       begins . .

she woke up because her feet were cold
The window was open
and she had not the audacity to
stand and shut it in someone else’s house

He was still asleep
beside her
The sheets were stained with her maiden’s
blood
That was all right
She was twenty
But him.... He was also twenty but that’s not the point

This was the boy who
put her through hell during both middle
and high school

The bully

There was that time when he pushed
her down the stairs
and broke her thumb

that time during the field trip
when he threw a rock
straight into the side of her head

that time when he put
a frog in her
lunchbox
And another in her backpack that she
carried home

That time he kicked the ball
in her face giving her
a ****** nose

that time when he threw a snowball
at her ear

And there was another incident
resulting in a chipped tooth

and all of that was besides the
name-calling and the random hair pulling
and the tripping and the scaring
and all...

Yet now here she was
Here they were
In his house
In his bed

And all because he contacted her the previous day
and apologized for everything. Truth
is her life placed some nasty miles both
behind and ahead of her
and someone being nice all of a sudden...

It was so easy to get her
And what did he think of her now?

She felt tears trickling down
her cheeks as she thought of this and
stared at his sleeping body beside her

Maybe the time to
get revenge was now

Or was it not?