Penance.

i.

This is the truth.

You were a wild thing, reckless and

almost chaotic, a runaway train

hurtling toward me, I

wanted that adventure (to disappear) and to forget

those very real things, back then.

I was a cowering ostrich, its head in the sand.

You were the tornado

that saved me.

ii.

A photo. You on our bed, hair

wet and a smile that’s a stranger to me now.

After that photo was taken we drank tequila and

I punched you in the eye (I guess I was reckless too)

we were old souls, roaming

hand in hand like trouble coming.

All those things, the pieces of me missing, love

and all that falls between the sheets

has a habit of leaving one starved.

iii.

This is how we worked.

I come home drunk, bones aching your name

like it’s written on my pelvis

you, half sleeping with a neck for my lips

and us, slipping into dreams before untangling our limbs

waking to a comfortable silence

that stretches on for years.

Safe. And tortuous.

Cruelty has many disguises.

iv.

This is the truth.

I turned you out like day old bread showing

premature signs of rot.

Then I begged you back, carpet burn knees and

sticky tears. Your heart 

was the Sistine chapel, dizzyingly

out of my reach. We left each other

scarred, burned out like matches.

Penance is this poem. (And all the others)