Purging

The pain starts in my heart, presses against the back of my teeth like
the morning after. I want to walk. I want to hear my Vans slap the
pavement, feel broken bits of blacktop grind under my feet, but I
can’t. The children are sleeping. The coffee pot is set for 5am.

He wants me to come to bed with him. I’m not me tonight.
Sometime after supper she danced around me, brushed her fingers across
my thigh and begged me to let her in. In the front of the house, the
box springs give under his weight and I stare at the computer chair.

My emotions are dull, analyzed, and understood. I let her into the
hollow to run like a wild stallion. From behind smudged black eyes the
feelings dart, dodge, never meet head on. She takes them from others
without knowledge - theirs or hers. And I want that back. I don’t want
to understand. I want to feel desperate, consoled, abused,
loved…..real.

She seeks salvation from winding roads and dirty white tiles; collects lies in amulets and broken boys in an old green backpack.

I let her sleep with me tonight. She lifts their faces out of that
backpack, strokes their hair, touches her cheek to theirs but the pain
doesn’t come.

The children are sleeping. The coffee pot is set for 5am. And I don’t want to be my own savior.