For Now

She takes a step back and

Wonders if this will be

Added to her long list of mistakes,

Or if those 9 weeks of

Happiness were really all that

Would have been given

Despite what she said

Or did to make you all

Turn away again,

Like a lost child

In a rainstorm, her

Socks soggy through

Her summer shoes,

Unable to deal with

What could have been avoided

Had her mother only seen the

Signs

And stopped her baby from

Going out alone again,

When she’d seen all too

Many times before the pain

A raindrop can cause her

Pale complexion when it has

Already been burned by the sun.

The splits in her skin

From days gone by,

The last time she barely survived it,

So to make her

Feel a monster for your

Own fraud is

Nothing

Short of cowardly.

This deceit belongs to you.

And when the

Midnight hail threatens

To crack the windows of

Her bedroom and destroy

Her final sanctuary,

She questions where

Her sanity truly lies, and

Wonders if this world even fits

Anymore,

Could there be another that

Doesn’t rub at the flesh

On her heels quite as harshly?

But for now she sits closer

To the line but not quite on it,

Because certain things are worth

Holding on to;

The children she has not yet

Held but loves irrevocably,

The songs she sings in the

Kitchen on winter nights in the

Amber glow of the refrigerator,

The call of cities 12 hours away

That beckon a new life where

Nobody feels it,

The coffee rings on writing desks

And sunlight tainted beautifully

By the windows on busses,

Muddy puddles or the

Glasses of a stranger reading

The newspaper.

The blue eyed boy with a

Gruff morning voice.

For now, they are enough.