Can you tell that I'm alive?
Let me prove it.

The real monsters can be rather close to you...
*Whispering in your ear to you...

She was beautiful
perhaps too pretty for me
such an ordinary man.
but beautiful in dark way.
I was no more
than origami to her.
She could shape me
anyway she wanted.
Her creases hurt me
but she did not care.
I realized that I loved her.
When I found myself
making excuses to others
for why she hurt me so badly.
Sometimes the pain
from her hurts
Was too much
for me to bear.
She would see my tears
and for a moment
she was kind and gentle
to me.
like a cat with a mouse.
I asked her
Why do you play with me
like that.?
She gave me her beautiful smile.
and the answer I already knew.
Because I can
and I am too old
to play with dolls.

As a little girl he sat next to me at school.
I always liked him,  no, much more than that.
Later we walked home together.
He would carry my books.
At graduation he was my date.
We even went to college together.
We broke the chains of friendship and he became my lover.
My first and only love.
We married young it was no surprise
to our parents they were expecting it.
Before I knew it we had three kids, two girls and a boy.
Our son looks just like him.
It was just like any other day.
He came home from work.
Cooked burgers on the barbeque.
We got the kids to bed.
drank a glass of wine then went to bed at ten.
He wanted to make love but I was exhausted.
The kids had been terrors all day.
The next day he kissed me goodbye with a see you later honey.
I got a call from my friend she said put on the TV.
I saw the towers fall turning to ashes.
Like my life did that moment.
All I could think was I wish I had made love to him last night.

September 11 2015

The children are all grown up now
He would be so proud of them.
I look at my strong handsome son.
He looks like him exactly
We stand at ground zero and say a prayer.
I whisper it was always you honey.
Only you.
As if by magic he answered me
A giant beautiful rainbow
circled over New York
and I know it was for me.

They sent Michael back to England.
His visa had expired.
I thought that was
Going to be the last I saw of him.
He was way too handsome for sloughy old me.
I had started to put weight on again.
My *** deciding it was not already big enough.
But my friend Annie said you look really good Kelly.
Your skin is clear and your glowing.

The morning sickness was a clue.
My doctor said three months in honey.
Your having a baby.
The later months were awful I got very sick.
It’s preeclampsia the doctor said.
I was bed rested for three months.
Still no word from Micheal.
I guess he had some English rose in the UK.
Then the attack I went into a coma.
It was three weeks later I awoke.
Someone was holding my hand.
It was Micheal.
I smiled weakly ..the baby I asked?
Fine Kelly they are both fine.
But you
I got a visa last week
But we have to married in two weeks
Or its back to old blighty.

He married me because
I was pregnant I am Sure.
Well double pregnant really
it was twins.
I never thought that he could love me
or that I could dare to love him.
It just felt the right thing to do.
But it changed when the twins arrived
I have never seen anyone as happy as him
well unless you count me in that is.
He was so good looking so gentle
What did he ever see in me?
I was always cheating and losing
on diets to keep myself a size fourteen.
My hair frizzy and wild.
But he made me feel beautiful.
How did he do that?
We went for a Sunday evening walk
It was fall in central park.
We walked the twins
in their double stroller.
The leaves had turned
red and amber
under the chilling winds
of late New York autumn.
The late fall sunlight
lit up the park in reds and golds
against the grey outlines of the old city.
A city that had seen many such love stories.
I see Michael holding the twins in his arms.
I could see the love he had for us all
in his beautiful eyes.
The same eyes that had
some major optical defect.
An aberration that
I had no understanding of.
Because he saw me as
beautiful and worthy of his love.
And in that single moment
There in central park on a red carpet
of rustling autumn leaves.
I felt him walk in into my heart
through a door I had always
left unlocked for only him.
As he entered inside me
to a place on this earth
that was destined for him alone.
I closed the door quietly behind him.
Locking it with the only key that existed.
Then throwing it into the urban woodlands
never to be found again.