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Helen Oct 2013
holding hands across
the cracked Formica
eyeing cracks in paint
he's thinking
I like her, no, I love her
she'll never be my regret

She's hurting and nervous
but she can't forget
how it is to beg
She licks her lips, tasting his hatred
sitting in front of Lasange and
wilted salad, Its not Steak
she whispers in a pathetically
apologetic voice
and he swallows his instinct
to roar his pain, in a calm voice
he states I'm useless to you,
to me and the baby, I've gotta go,
I'll be home maybe, maybe when
I've lived up to my promises
of giving you another life...

She waits on the stairs
for him to come home
*She IS his wife
yeah, I totally f**cked that up!

Stephen E Yocum ~
"Normally I adore brevity, the less is more,
but this teasing write of yours begs, as I do
now for more. Expand you care, if you dare.
I want you to, I wish you would."

There is probably an Epilogue floating around somewhere... I doubt it though... Maybe, some day... I'll share...
Helen Oct 2013
It seems I only have
two expressions
totally whipped
and Sorry
nobody really cares
and
it's really not a worry
I sat upon the stairs
til midnight
next to me
was a plastic plate,
plastic knife and fork
left over Lasagne
and wilted salad
It wasn't Steak
but I had nothing else
to offer
It went as cold
as my nose
sitting on the steps
you would take
if you came home
Helen Oct 2013
I don't believe in God
I'm sorry
I'm not actually apologising
for the fact it's just what I've been conditioned
to say by society

Sorry?

Don't get me wrong
I was shackled as a child
to Sunday school after Chuch
and my informative
young woman years were left dead
by Girls Brigade
didn't make me less wild

Mother was Presbyterian
Father was Methodist
(You don't think I was messed up by this?)
Christened as Chuch of England
Raised as a Baptist
I think, all of the above
fall under 'Christianity'
but I'm not sure of this

So many secular emotions
under one umbrella
I'd bet, someone's gonna get wet

Then there is Islam and Hinduism
Sikhism and Judeaism
and spiritual beliefs like
Bhuddism and Druidism

How do all those different Gods compete
for our favour? To get us to lay down
as followers, to be the mat for their precious feet?
It would have to be a pretty mean feat!
I imagine them as Gladiators
fighting for the right for the masses to cheer
Winner takes all but, Losers get the non believers

What do you think the Ancient Gods
think of their petty squabbling?
The Eygyptians, the Greeks?
who simply stated humans
were to worship them religiously
and it was done, because they can
They seemed more fierce to me
sitting on Mt Olympus and coming down
occasionally, at least they had a face
What's been touted today to the human race?

I don't know enough about Religion
to make choice or want to learn
I married a Roman Catholic
that opened a whole new can  of worms
An Irish Roman Catholic
Yeah, I see you nodding your heads
Suicidal, I think is the term

So I decided my children would not
be burdened by my religious ineptitude
They can choose their own beliefs
for I surely won't intrude
on their individual right to make
a decision based on their own feelings
I know I'm probably wrong, I just want
them to believe in something
Anything that makes their day better,
that helps them sleep at night
I won't choose their religion for them
I don't think that's right
I believe Heaven and Hell is a place we make for ourselves on this plane of Existence
Helen Oct 2013
There was less than 5 minutes left.

   She didn’t wake this morning thinking that she had 5 minutes left and what the sudden impact of that moment would have on her.

   She awoke to gentle kisses from her husband as he gently whispered his lips against her eyelids and caressed her face like he was committing her to his memory. It had been their ritual for nearly 2 years now. He was off to save the world, the face of danger just another one in his day and she was there when he got home, to wipe away the horrors that he saw, day in day out. It was her face that helped him get through every day.

   It was only after a solitary breakfast and a sigh, with mundane, routine tasks running though her mind, being mentally checked off her To Do List that she found herself inside the bank just after lunch impatiently shuffling her feet in a line that took even more precious minutes from a life that always expected a tomorrow.

   ‘He doesn’t know!’
She shuffles forward slowly as she unconsciously strokes her flat belly.
‘But he will tonight. Tonight I get to show my total commitment to him by introducing our daughter’
She realizes that she hasn’t moved in line even though there is no longer no one in front of her anymore. For some reason they are all laying on the floor like they’ve turned to jelly and when she is seized roughly from behind she only just notices that she is the chosen one because she remained standing and it’s that defiance that will be punished.

   She is left standing, strapped inside a hideous contraption with a timer that is blinking at her silently, mocking her by quietly saying This Is The Time You Have Left

   And now there is less than 5 minutes left. All the bad men have gone, all except the one or two that bleed silently on the floor. The rest of the bank patrons have been moved out, single file, through the front door and through the floor to ceiling glass windows she can see the crowd gathered, staring at her, standing alone in the middle of the floor, studying her with pity in her eyes and she all of a sudden feels small and so terribly alone.

   Until the cavalry arrive. Overly padded men, moving slowly, encumbered by their protective suits and moving with unhurried movements toward her. She wants to shout at them to hurry but she can’t even move her lips. One breaks away to move slowly towards her until she can see his eyes behind the mask. They look at her with sorrow but they really say ‘I can free you. Feel the confidence in my power. I am here to save the day’

   He bends close to her body to work feverishly at her trappings all the while the timer is shouting You Have Even Less Time To Stay. She doesn’t know why she feels a connection to her savior but she gently lays her hand to his bowed head as if to say

‘I believe in you’

   He turns to the rest of team with a small shake of his head and they instinctively melt back outside the doors like mist on a cloudy day. She understands that all hope is gone and she prepares herself to say goodbye to her only hope and make him understand that she doesn’t blame him and she’s sorry that it will be a bad day for him but surely he also has someone he needs to go home to.

   He removes his helmet and looks down on the face of the only women he has ever loved with a passion that he has never known. He instinctively brushes a gentle hand across her stomach and spreads butterfly kisses across her eyelids and crushes her tightly into an embrace that will commit to his memory a body that was his for a such a short time.

   She didn’t go alone.
not really a poem, not quite a short story... just one of those 'things'
Helen Oct 2013
guess what i saw today?
a guy holding a sign saying
Free Hugs
and I thought to myself...
Really? Is anything truly free in today's world?
and I stopped to look at him,
really took a good look
and noticed that he wasn't just trying to make others happy
he just wanted to be hugged
Its then i realised in our own desperation
we create situations to suit
ourselves.
Hugs given, or received, are beneficial
to both the giver and the receiver
and truly are free :)
Helen Oct 2013
boldly do we stand
next to each other
wearing last seasons colours
but we're holding hands

It doesn't matter

that we couldn't dress
to this years fashion
or hide our blemishes
we dress with passion
we've escaped to our own
private place, a secluded island
where the clothes we've shed
lay as rags, they no longer matter

I stand before you
unadorned by Lace
or Satin, nor Ribbons
just Skin, and Lust
just a body, and face
that adores you
without a trace
of tattered rags
or Princess dress
naked before you
*I look my best
Helen Oct 2013
maybe? the apple of your eye?
the exhaled breath, you held?
a gratuitous golden sigh?

I could be the paint that dried
that you so intently watched
or the grass that is greener
on the other side
except you never jumped the fence
I'm just a skirt you tossed

I wish I was a lone fish
in the bowl of busy life
except wishes are fishes to you
so industriously multiplying

How about,
*I'm your wife?
I love him, I truly do... and he'd never cheat on me but, some days, I feel I come off second best to the stresses of life ;)
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