I want it to be like
you're in the guestroom
like we had a "guestroom"
or second restroom
but the focus then
is on earning potential
on gain
on capital
instead of the lie
still stuck in your throat.
I smell it: your gullet...
the living room is rancid with it..
the rot still lingering
on the barely shod
curtain rod.
My senses have no room
and the anger is in my tongue and fists
and I am writhing
and punching
SCREAMING
and you...
are finally
leaving.

SLAP.
My muscles tense.
SLAP.
My jaw tightens.
SLAP.
Sounds begin to dim.

Inhale.
One, two, three.
My pupils dilate.
Exhale.
Four, five, six.
My hands form fists.

Inhale.
Seven, eight, nine.
My heart hardens.
Exhale.
Ten. Ten. Ten.
It'll be over soon.

One, two, three, four, five.
Slow your heartbeat.
Six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
Be still, still as stone.

"You're basically a good daughter, but..."

Words can penetrate the stone hearted.

Words uttered a lifetime ago,
Yet I can't escape their ringing in my ears,
In my stone-hardened heart--
The center of this stone statue.

sometimes
there are rocks in my hands
and only tight clenched fists
can keep them from smashing
the mirror world below
into delicate shards of broken promises.
i long to float among the clouds -
one with the stratosphere -
but the rocks weigh me down
so that i cannot touch them.
reaching
but never reached.

people in glass houses
aren't supposed to throw stones.
so i am sure to keep locked
my loaded palms
hiding in plain sight.

only your lips
with homemade ice-cream touches
can coerce my stagnant fingers
to melt back into warm flesh.
skin bones knuckles joints.
i release the stones over a waterfall cliff -
rushing rolling rambling -
and they ripple in the water
and sink to the soil of the riverbed
making a home for fragile fish
in search of shelter.