Stop the Words

These thought processes…
I am inside out, shredded…
on so many levels
out of sync…
hear my own words
nothing but hot air
making me so dizzy
that I’m becoming afraid
of heights….
phobic, actually

Breathe,
I remember somewhere
between gulps of helium
and the hammering
in my head…
breathe…

Platitudes have no place
in this moment
in the inside out
emotionally raw now

So, I’ll quit the words
breathe until I find ground
again….
then repeat.

(Inspired by the prompt of Reena’s Exploration challenge which can found here. Image my own.)

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Rage as Catalyst

This rage –
this storm,
waves crashing
against walls
impenetrable

I am ice,
unforgiving,
unrepentant,
wounded

thrashing
against a beast
unwittingly
played by you

We freeze.

I’ve come undone;
you are battered.
It is irreparable
absolute

until one of us
shifts, and fear
surges, unleashing
tears

and transformation.

Appetite

The initial spoonful –
salted caramel cool –
consoles bitten tongue,
slides down burning throat:
appeasement for churning gut.

Each spoonful savoured
sweetness countering bile,
dark chocolate shavings
as bittersweet as the emotion
being pushed down, buried

Bruised by conflict,
words ineffectual,
ice cream an unworthy
compensation, cravings
turn to salty reprieve.

Checked Out

Every woman needs a man,
her mother told her, to make
her complete.  To submit,

she realizes, too late, soul
traded for high-rise living,
big city dreams numbing

inner losses; she eats to
appease an inner sorrow,
a second-rate childhood,

afraid of being a burden,
loathe to create a stir,
conditioned complacency:

appeasing, pleasing, follows
plans, avoids decisions, never
really knows where she is going.

Can she fault the man, schooled
to provide – the alpha male taking
ownership/ charge?  His child

lives here too, feeds on impulses,
craves attention, overcompensates
for fears of lacking with bravado;

cannot understand why she never
asserts her self, alternately reads
acceptance and disapproval, frets –

an eternally unsettled gnawing gut.
They stumble over one another, seek
separation in small quarters, discuss

repairmen, schedules – nothing;
avoid deeper issues like the fact
that they are both suffocating, near

jumping off the ledge of their high
faluting existence, into the snarl
of traffic that immobilizes them.

The noise of city living has negated
their ability to listen, the distractions
altered them; the distance between

is too far to bridge in a single sigh,
and she, no longer submissive,
has joined him, and checked out.