The stranger has returned
The one I despise.
I can see his shadow
Behind her green eyes.

I thought he was gone
Not seen him for years
But look here he is
Confirming my fears.

This uninvited guest
Who brings only sadness
I just want to hold her
Protect her from this madness.

He's doing his best
To pull her apart
It's sapping her strength
And breaking my heart

I see his presence
Inside her head
He tells her there's no point
In getting out of bed

He taunts her at night
As she lies awake
The pills aren't working
The cycle they can't break

He takes her emotions
To love, to be kind
He's trying to change her
To poison her mind.

She looks at me angry
Says I don't understand
As she pulls away
When I try to hold her hand

How are you doing?
I hear everyone ask
I'm good she replies
From behind her mask

They all think she's fine
That she's doing OK
But I know different
He's making her that way

I know I can't fix her
I can't make It right
So i will just love her
And pull her in tight.

She needs me to be patient
She needs me to be strong
She needs understanding
For however long.

So i tell myself this
Whenever I can
That the tears I am crying
Make me no less a man

It's threatening to consume me
The pain no one sees
Watching her struggle
With this wicked disease

I know that she needs me
To travel this road
To support and to help her
To lighten her load

And we need her also
The children and me
How important she is
I wish she could see

This kind and loving Woman
With so much to give
He's pulling at her soul
Her reason to live

But this woman is strong
She won't let him stay
Our love for each other
Will chase him away

Each time he comes
He stays a little longer
Though when he leaves
Our bond it grows stronger

Her hapiness will return
And her zest for life
This wonderful mother
My beautiful wife

Our lives will be joyful
And happy once more
With our 2 crazy children
Our family of four.

The Agèd Hands of Time have reached yet another
toll of the bell.

12 years have passed since I’ve last seen her in this life.
Distance and sickness in our being had robbed us both
of streams of time which passed like a long cold winter
into her death. These lost memories often create over-
exposed and superimposed photo negatives of imaginary
frames of time I desperately imprint to hold tightly in my
heart and mind.

But I still hold tightly in memory to her soft voice on the
phone and pictures of split second frames of physical
time my sister would send me. Many people don’t even
have that.

In this life she loved to mother her three grown children
and flower garden as near as
she could to the end. It was
in her nature to nurture us--
her perennial children--
and to help make the move easier for her literal annual foster children plants taken
from a confined existence to a deep soft warm bed of comfort.

Stamped on my mind is not the faded and worn, bruised
and torn image of her outward shell in the Trauma
Center at age 88, but the indelible inner and outward
image at age 38: a lovely young mama who tucked her
little boy in bed every night with a song and a prayer.
The little boy that is still alive in this man.

The Agèd Hands of Time have reached yet another
toll of the bell.

Suffocated by agony, dazed with confusion
Stuck in reality, that I'd druther be an illusion
Skinned alive, right straight down to raw emotion
Not a save harbor to be found, on my life's raging ocean
A living oxymoron, I'm raw to the touch but inside hollow
How much more will I be forced to swollow

I must be looking mighty strong
See the universe, keep piling it on
Can't anybody at all tell
Still in the middle of my living hell
Birds tweeting like nothings wrong
Mocking me with their sweet song

How much longer will I stand in front of life's curtain
Knowing only pain and sorrow are for certain
Drowning in the deepest darkest grief
Innocence, love, joy, and sanity, stolen by the thief
How much longer will it be till that final decision
Before it's made, that final incision

I must be looking mighty strong
See the universe, keep piling it on
Can't anybody at all tell
Still in the middle of my living hell
Birds tweeting like nothings wrong
Mocking me with their sweet song

Only a shadow of what I could of been
Being made to atone for mine and other's sin
I've tasted on my lips everything that could mar
Inside and out I wear the battle scars
Should I step behind the final veil
Slice myself out if this prison cell


©Pauline Russell