Wayward Daughter

(Warning: this poem discusses the effects of sexual assault, and may be disturbing to some readers.)

Back and forth I travel, searching
for her – retrace every bend, curve,
detour – back to the water, the sand,
the beach where I lost her…haunted

by velvet brown eyes – bedroom eyes,
they told her, men with greedy loins,
calculating – I lost her to the lure of
alcohol, to the pounding beat of drums
in those smoky corners so far removed
from the purity of our dreams…

It’s been an arduous journey, some days
so lost in the daze of forgetting; I cycle
back, memories of manhood exposed
egos craving stroking, learning
what men wanted, learning to numb

disappointment with fast-talk
and all-nighters, suppressing tears
discovering that words hold no promise
and water is deep, and going within
is a dark, foreboding place, and worth…

is shrouded by the discovery
that the father she adored was not
as we’d thought, and that this primal
urge for mating was a trap….
designed to eradicate beauty,
not enhance it…

I need to find her,
hold her afloat in sacred waters,
help her feel the healing light
of a thousand women’s hearts
all bleeding as one,

all tainted by the same
convoluted messages –
that lust is sinful and copulation
a man’s domain, and that in order
to be espoused, she must forgo
her nature – tame the wild
settle…

but as much
as I travel these lonely roads,
I cannot find her, the traces of
her innocence washed away
by the tides…lines now
on this aged face

If you see her, please
hold her close…
hold her until the beauty
of her being is solid knowing
and the shame vanquished
Hold her till she understands
the light she was born to be.

( Wayward Daughter first appeared here in February, 2017, and was published in the anthology: We Will Not Be Silenced: The Lived Experience of Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault…, by Indie Blu Publishing, 2018. This version is edited. I am submitting it for my weekly challenge: roads. Art my own.)

A Mirage

Do not apologize
the fault lies not with you

Love, while lauded for its cures,
is not always compensation

for a life of turmoil –
I know you loved her

Watched as you let your dreams slide
heart wringing with your own sorrow

There was just something about her
men lined up to grasp… to make her

What? Theirs? Happy?
It was not to be

she barely possessed herself…
Even in death, I reach for her

try to define the ruse
but her essence is elusive

No, you are not at fault…
for she was never really there.

(For Reena’s Xploration Challenge, prompt the featured image.)

Dreaming Oceans

Ingrained in me
this flight
eye on the future
the periphery
closing in.

Husband urges me
forward, but where
this road leads
I do not know

Connected to self
open, escaping into
the vast expanse
becoming fluid
alive, nurtured

I have been spit out
by life so often,
taught to be taut,
it’s hard to plunge,
let go of the past
and just swim.

(Submitting for my weekly challenge: peripheral. Image my own.)

Marital Dance

We converse in actions
words inaccessible –
have not been schooled
in dialogues for two.

His clutter spreads
pronounce’s a kingly
presence, commands
attention, oppresses

I clean with insistence
shuffle papers, wipe up
crumbs, assert my right
to co-exist, belittle him.

Once we studied dance;
he learning to lead, I
to follow signals – the art
is lost on us now, our steps

more interference, blocking
an inconvenience, not a
strategy; we are rhythmless
tolerating avoidances

How did language fail us
experts now at skirting
delicate issues, retreating
into solo performances

Pray time will serve,
absolve the problem, but
distance grows in silent cracks
we only converse in actions.

(Marital Dance first appeared here in August, 2017.
I submit it here, edited, for Eugi’s Weekly prompt: dance.
Image my own.)