January 2, 2022

What is it with you?

What is the block,

the wall,

the huge gray hunk of cement 

that keeps you bottled up?

When did you learn it is dangerous to talk?

When did you learn you retain more power when you refuse to talk?

Jabs, attacks, cuts to your softest parts,

to your heart,

to your soul. 

How you must have bent and warped and rerouted your heart after each one. 

When did you start to believe that controlling all the things outside of yourself

keeps your world in control? 

It doesn’t, you know.

And maybe none of that is true.

Maybe all that is true is that you 

Talk when you want

Stay stony silent when you want

Judge when you want

Accuse when you want

Push away 

And refuse to explain or discuss because that would mean a diminution of your power.

At most, you leave a sparse trail - breadcrumbs of communication

few

and

far

between

So that no one can figure out what is going on

Although you impatiently expect us to

When you want us to.

How is all of this so difficult?

How has this become so sad?

Something that should excite us, a treasure chest of gold pieces

we both love:

history, maps, photographs, letters, writing.

 

How has that devolved into a mire of 

Avoidance

Arguments

Personal attacks?

Like we speak different languages

now.

I don’t understand the words coming out of your mouth

And you tell me not to say any.

How do we recover?

How do I save myself from what I don’t want to see in you,

from the nausea and fear and anger 

that open like an enormous, endless, black, molten pit in me

spewing out red hot echoes that burn far too close 

to the ashes of my upbringing

    and my first husband

before I knew boundaries even existed

    in normal people

and leave me staring,

wide-eyed and blank,

frozen in disbelief, 

not knowing what to do 

shaking, in that moment.

- k.s. January 2, 2022