When it's just me now doing the reps.
The other has gone off to Valhalla
Where she imagines thunderbolts raining
Like flowers on my subservient head.
But I got two dogs on my leash to her zero.
Life for her is a struggle for breath, expended
Honking orders specifically so
The recipient can never get it right
And must beg humbly for forgiveness to
All the terror her condition has unloaded
On her sublimely unmedicated self.
I must go, to the la la land of compassion
Where all souls are lovely, and no gesture stands
As an attempt sent back to truly love.
She closed the deal for her children.
I made my pact with the muse.
It always is for me some final stand
Against silence, but my voice should recall
How to breathe before it would shout.
It's hard to begin again
When endings are so painful,
Where the truth it is an ending
Releases its wool from eyes
Unaccustomed to this light
On the Huntington Beach pier, all its glories
Arranged for me, and me alone, now.
The world of couples stares at my star shades
In gratitude, not envy, for I have
Forged the fire as I was burned alive in it.
And now I am free, because I choose to be,
Choose a troubadour's solitude once more.
A boy with guitar and the gift sings on the pier
For dollars, of deepest pain
Only as a feeling of peace.
