loose threads

Writer’s tip: if your character is stuck, give them the freedom of verse to sort it out. Or dig themselves a deeper hole.

The first touch, electric
Years drop to the floor
like leaves in the fall
My hands remember the feel
of loving him
I can travel this landscape 
without a map or guide
My body’s memory comes alive
This is being a body, it exalts
All peaks and hills and valleys
Monsoon season and then away away away 

The second touch, fire
licking up his reinforced walls 
blooming across the ceiling of our sanctuary 
embers on the marital bed
He yells and yells and yells and
people think it’s part of the show
while I flail to save the little boy
who can’t stop drowning in moonlight

The third touch, scorched earth
The aftermath of conflagration
Isolation in bed with you
heavy asleep on my shoulder
knee bruising my hip
In a month that bruise will be all that’s left
of the future we tried to build 
I will wish for this bruise to fade
but it will linger for months
outlasting your commitment 

-rjm