I remember
you & I, everything
beautiful house
children playing,
dog in the yard

You came home
hurried that day
not unusual lately,
I knew what was
happening,
you didn't have to tell me
a single receipt for jewelry,
I didn't receive
a sudden need
...for a portable phone

I fell to my knees
Fervently asking of why
Imploring God,
...begging for a sign

I went to sleep
and in a dream,
all unfolding
saw the whole thing
from above
the truck,
&... details

Never... even.... saw,
that train coming
said ...
...you'd NEVER leave

Then, she...
had the nerve
the audacity
to come to that party,
eat MY food,
drink MY wine
then...
having her "fortune" told,
...by me?

Well...
I knew then,
what I know now,
you never really loved her
you thought the grass
would be so much greener?
....It wasn't

We made New Year
wishing bags,
the kids & I
brown paper ones,
like my heart
filled with dreams
...of a bright New Year

Burst before we had a chance
carried off
in suitcase & goodbye
many tears,  we
yet to cry
tenderly asking,
again of why..

As the proverbial rug
from under my feet
was pulled out,
falling apart
everything I believe
to be the value of my life
gone in a split second
fracturing time
shattered & broken
left in a void
from words left unspoken

You said I'd regret this
as you walked away
I said "No"

"We both will"...

Cherie Nolan © 2016

Love a girl who writes
and live her many lives;
you have yet to find her,
beneath her words of guise.

Kiss her blue inked fingers,
forgive the pens that marked.
the stain of your lips upon her-
the one she can't discard.

Forget her tattered memories,
or the pages others took;
you are her ever after
the hero of her book

My thoughts appear as on a
Conveyor belt in front of me.
I sit some distance from them
And watch them pass.
I am allowed to choose which ones to
Discard
And which to pick off the track to examine
At my leisure.
In my own time.

The same old thoughts go around and around
Like suitcases abandoned at the airport carousel.
I leave those battered, tattered old cases.
I am managing very well without their contents.
I like to travel light.

"Home is where the heart is."

My heart has been on vacation,
got lost at the station,
missed it's connecting flight,
has come down with a plight.

It's missed the school bus,
forgotten how to trust,
spilled coffee in its lap,
fallen into a trap.

It's still playing dress up,
afraid still to mess up,
losing its car keys,
crying after a tease.

If home is where the heart is,
a place where a warm hearth is,
then mine has missed the boat
for I'm still just out afloat...

no one to talk to
no one to whisper deep insecurities with
and exchange small secrets under the moon,
slow kiss like fire, and
invade all personal space but love it.
no one.
no one to cradle my head while I sleep
or lace their hands with mine and refuse to let go.
no one to gently place their lips on my forehead and
as their breath caresses my face I hear them say
I love you.
But no one does that.
I am alone.
staring at the ceiling wondering what on earth
made me so unlovable,
made so naive,
so unworthy
of what I desperately need...

Brake-clutch-shift
Glance at the clock
It must be about... half-past-an *******
as I sit in traffic, idling, wondering

Glance at the clock
Could this be hell?
98 degrees, sure humid enough
and will this guy ever signal a turn
or find the gas pedal?!
No, of course not
His job in damnation is to torture
the sucker stuck behind--

--his cardiac appointment
his destiny at the grocery store
Half hour early
just to wait in line
to pick up prescriptions
to punch the clock at The Pearly Gates

He's out and about in his Ford Taurus
ridin' the brakes
touring the streets in sunglasses with blinders

“No Effn' blinker, Pops!?”

Twenty miles per hour
just inside the lines of

Turning me into the animal I am
in the depths