Didn’t make the front page
Another statistic  
Just one more fact
A name added on the list
A casualty soon to be forgotten

Yes I do…
I said while soaked in tears
Not for love but fear
Pain kept me enslaved
Fright left me empty
In and out I was broken

A lethal kiss sealed the deal
You in black, I in white
Predator and prey
Gambling with death
Keeping the act until the end

I could have asked for help
I should have said it wasn’t right
I could have walked away
I should have… I could have…
But I was afraid
And blamed myself

Weakness and regrets aren’t the answer
Your rage was my punishment  
As I keep saying “I do”
After each punch and kick
I never fought back
Only crawled and cried

Overwhelming shame
Betraying the self
I let you smash my self-esteem
Believing everything you said
Detaching myself from life
Was my only escape

Incapable of asking for help
I determined our fate  
Things could have been different
But now is too late
To change our destiny
To get things in place

I shouldn’t have said “I do”
I could have said “I don’t”
I should have… I could have…
But I was afraid

Sooner or later everything gets played out
and the music stops -

childhood almost before it has begun
with youth rushing on to it's doom
and adulthood  showing some semplance of maturity
before middle-age despondency.

Wise old age reveals itself as a grinning caricature
reflecting comically the way things should have been.

this is the part where I tell you that
on our first date, he set his table with candles to make it romantic and I thought it was,
but no. he tried
I knocked them into his flooding sink
I knew he hated romantics, and I wasn’t one.
he tried to hide it, but I saw his burned thumb

this is the part where I tell you
we played each other love songs and sang sugar pumpkin words
but we played on out-of-tune pianos in the practice rooms,
the ones with dusty white linoleum floors
because the cleaning lady was too lazy to walk up to the 6th floor every day;
the elevator was broken
broken love songs that neither of us would admit we meant.
maybe we didn’t know it ourselves
the wrong notes we hit were somehow grossly harmonic.

this is the part where I tell you that
he talked business and marketing with my father,
he made my mother laugh at ****** knock-knock jokes
he played catch with my little brother,
but he'd never do any of that.
he thought my mom was vain and my siblings were devil incarnations.

this is the part where I tell you
his handwriting was often indecipherable and I was the only who could read it,
but life’s not excessively beautiful
I hated his handwriting. I could never read it.
The n’s looked like h’s
and the a’s looked like o’s

this is the part where I tell you
he brought roses to my door just because it was Tuesday,
he snuck chocolates into my backpack
but he didn’t believe in gift-giving.

only one time, he showed up looking confused and
shameful,
he was holding a little toy train set
I'd played with them as a kid.
then, surprise! The box was filled with his sister's old Barbies
only half-dressed
like the ones I used to try and flush down the toilet,
I knew what he was trying to say
and slapped him upside the head,
*I love you too.

Furry brown monkey
strapped tight to back,
harnessing freedom
from the child;
tan strap wrapped
around mother’s wrist,
a maternal yoke,
circling each other
like earth and moon.

Don’t go too far, dear child,
you are mother’s prized subsidiary;
she does not run well
with heels and cell;
go lay with the dogs
or crawl on all-fours
on polished mall floor.

Are they training to be tethered
tight to authority’s rock?
Restless boats un-docked
during the storm of release which comes
once free of the leash;
no wonder they tend to run.

Isolated in the shadows
kept away in storage
above his head.

Directed downtown
where the strangers
tended to hide.

Accompanied with
a pack of matches
and a money jar.

The jar was empty,
as was her stride;
a hollow center.

Nobody noticed,
save for the night ice
bullying her raw.

Tried to keep warm
by a cheap timid flame
ablaze in delusion.

Hallucinations kept
her sanity at bay
until the final fade.

The next morning
the matches were gone,
and so was her mind.

Body frozen stiff,
she chose to remain
in those lovely flames.

i remember childhood
like i forget most moments,
something
is always missing

like every autumn
i'd go upstate
to pin ornaments onto trees
like they were war veterans who lost their feet

and rake
stockpiles of leaves

(i can hear their tiny spines breaking)

the ground crackled
because i walked on fire
it was easy
it smelt stale

i recall the fall
in mounds.

i never landed .

i remember floating.