A Poem: Call for Help

I put my heart into the wrong container,

expecting it to be healing and warm.

Instead, what I found was a complainer

whose affection hit me like chloroform.

In those years, every time I would wake

and work to fix the situation at hand,

instead I would find a man like a snake,

all too ready to lie and misunderstand.

My inner strength was sapped away,

stolen in pieces, he’d ruin it, bit by bit.

A kick or punch is so much clearer by day

than the words upon which he would sit.

How I was so blind, I ask myself daily,

wondering how I could be so broken.

If only he’d hit me, punching as gayly

as his words and dismissal were spoken.

Now, I find myself in a vice-grip by fear,

its cold, dead fingers attached like a leech.

My first instinct is to run away, steer clear

of any affection—anxiety makes me screech.

Please, I implore, help me pick up the pieces

of what is left in the aftermath of this fall.

Alone, impossible, but with help, it ceases

to be something for which I feel I cannot call.

Encountering Evil

Crawling out of the woodwork like a termite,

his toxicity, like tentacles slither out, poison

to the sweet sapling that must be moistened,

protected only by the tamarin and her vicious bite.

Damaged walls let the poisoned gases in,

inhabitant unsuspecting of incoming damage

or even the glaring lack of proper bandage

over wounds never healed; they easily reopen.

Small, innocent soul, unknowingly tortured by

the confusion and disruption: betrayed by him,

a most trusted companion she held above all sin,

in the highest esteem; surely, he was unable to lie.

Confusion and chaos abound in her mind,

put to rest only by motherly affection and love,

protected, held close within Mama’s glove,

so, to the demonic manipulation, she is blind.

Discomfort seeps in, touching everyone with infection;

social constructs do the best to make it squirm.

One can find comparison to it with the worm,

an apt comparison in terms of lacking verbal inflection.

It’s enabled and encouraged by a female so vile,

her vitriol, never-ending, just sprays and spews

to those she cannot control with her narrow views

and manipulation tactics that only provoke bile.

Nausea, rocking, churning, bubbling like a hot sea,

a physical response to psychological stress

unnecessarily exacerbated in times of distress,

appetites turned as sour as a lost, forgotten pea.

I knew what it was when I laid eyes on it at first,

a hideous, disgusting energy, vile as vomit,

disguising itself with the success of a large comet

shooting through a night only described as the worst.

As I watched, the shape transformed, a mask

seeping over the visage I’d glimpsed but quickly;

my soul knew the evil as I do now as its sickly

energy could be drunk like liquid from a flask.

But then I allowed it to slip on its mask before

I knew what was even happening before my eyes.

He gave meaning to the phrase, “time flies,”

and I became lost within its darkness, craving more.

Perception

Mindful practice leads to mindful expression,

yet my words bring on unwarranted projection

of a psychotic, horrible, toxic perception

of unfolded events; denial; rejection.

Boomerangs aren’t my style; I prefer seeds

to plant as thoughts that, like food, feed

some ideas that might just let you see,

if I explain it right, I’m a human with needs.

Reputations do not depend on one person’s thoughts;

actions explain themselves, reason is sought,

and when reason comes up naught,

then, only then, is the true villain caught.

Those without balance devise their own doom,

regardless of dark or light on their loom

of life; the organization of their living room

does nothing to stop the disastrous boom.

“Unacceptable,” the consensus does say;

the same word is uttered every day

as an assessment of the inexplicable way

he decided he no longer wanted to stay.

A tiny spirit, confused, heartbroken, trampled and torn

over sudden abandonment, sharp as a thorn;

I do what I can to ease her pain, while my scorn

comes out in writing; yet it’s seen as something worn.

Distance, closed by screens yet expanded by air,

I am here and you’re all the way over there;

you will never see the why and the where,

the what or how I soothe her when she’s scared.