Passive/Aggressive

Urgency and age, well acquainted
Is it Celestine, this draw
or a fateful sense of lacking?

Time ticks a cringeworthy rhythm
insists I pay attention – Fine!
say I, lingering over a defiant tea

Passive is my denial
aggressive is the fear
Tomorrow, I tell myself.

( Tuesdays, I borrow from Twitter @Vjknutson. Image my own.)

(Water: Haiku and Free Verse)

Even the river bleeds
fiery frigid essence
Earth’s watery voice.

**

It is the river
that calls, waters
flowing through my veins

and I, the banks
steadfast and holding

the razor sharp edges
like liquid steel
erode my earthen postures

challenging…
blessedly challenging…
the hardened places.

(Water: Haiku and Free Verse first appeared here in June of 2018. It is has been edited for this version. Image my own.)

Deceit

“I’d like to get you know more,”
he said, pulling up a chair
met with stunned silence

“Truly,” he prodded, “I feel
as if we’ve drifted apart,
and I’ve ignored us.”

I might have said “No kidding”
but hope swelled with his words
and I blurted: “Ask away.”

So he listened,
as he had that first night
when tipsy and enamoured

We’d stumbled home
from the bar, and he
into my bed…and stayed

Seventeen years
three children
and five houses

and now he wanted to know
all about me – my interests
my dreams, my fears

And trout-like, I bit
spilled it all, still believed
in turning points and

riding off together
into the sunset, reunited
by undying love

It all showed up,
twisted of course,
in the court affidavit

material to defeat me
in divorce – discredit
my parenting capabilities

He didn’t succeed, still
wish we’d mingled more
you know – actual dates

before I’d committed
my life to this robotic
man, who never saw me.

(For Eugi’s Weekly Prompt: mingle. Image my own.)