You're the hurricane
Swirling through my brain,
Your words are the lightning,
And my tears are the rain.

Nothing will make up for
The scars and the pain;
The suffering and tears,
And cursing your name.

I feel so depressed;
So upset and ashamed,
My world without you
Will never be the same.

Am I making sense
Or am I insane?
You are an anchor,
And my love for you is the chain.

I'm stuck on you,
Though you are the one to blame,
I got so hurt,
Yet you remained the same.

I'm drowning in my love for you,
Or is it hate that I now show?
After all that you've done to me,
I love you, but want you to explode.

Imprisoned by will
enslaved by a notion
I ripped my heart out
and let it sail in the ocean.

Disillusioned by segregation
a victim of seclusion
let my heart find another
and savor the taste of fusion.

Caressed by echoes
and the sounds of the gone
let the hearts strike a common note
and sing their own song.

Driven by purpose
fueled with youth
let my heart serve the time
let it live to its repute.

Distracted by the world
Soothed by deceit
Let my heart overcome
the bitter thorns of defeat

Drenched in colors of present
showered in shades of yesterday
Let my heart disregard time and
live tomorrow in a better way.

Worn out by the distance
overcome by remorse
let my heart return
only to find burned doors.

She brushed out landscapes with her words
as deftly as any impressionist master
and speed-trekked us from where we sat
to scenes of transcendent beauty.
Each day I awaited her verbal canvases
with self-indulgent anticipation.

But one day all was all different.
What was this horrific account of
of unspeakable Afghan tragedy -
A wandering woman whose final defeat,
after all she loved had been butchered,
was hope beyond all recovery
dragging her feet through the dust?

I picked up my heart from out of the soil
to ask her, "were you there?"
She was  - with a physician's bag
for Cindy is a doctor
who eschews a suburban clinic
to defy all danger
and be where life would fail
without her healing craft and care.

Dodging bullets, sputum and mortal threats,
Cindy fights life's most essential battles
and so uplifts the standard of our species.

The next day Cindy painted for us
a verdant mountain scene
whose whispering streams and fragrance
exceeded all I'd every witnessed.

I wonder where she is.

*September, 2013