Was It Ever Truly Mine?

 

I sit in the dark contemplating life’s complexities

Wondering why, if we are each given the gift of life

That we allow someone else the privilege

To control and dictate how we will live that life.

 

Weren’t they given their own to do with as they please?

Why then do they feel the need to have mine also?

Why do they feel that my very existence was put here to serve only them?

That without them, I would have no life at all.

 

At what point did I decide that it was ok for them to take it?

Was this a conscious decision on my part?

That my wishes and dreams counted for nothing,

That my needs and my opinions no longer mattered.

 

How many people will I give this power to in one lifetime?

There were my parents and my siblings while I lived at home.

Soon appeared the schools and the churches with their principled rules;

The bosses, the nuns and the occasional lover.

 

I then married; adding a husband, the kids and a dog.

Then the in-laws, the out-laws, the neighborhood broods

My children found partners and soon they had kids

And I lay here and I ponder; would I have a change a thing?

Echoes of Mistakes Gone By

(A poem written for a challenge to take one line from Robert Frosts Poem and build another)

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Of a choice made once in haste

Of a love allowed to die

Because of vanity and lie

I laid my life to waste.

Two men vied for my heart one day

One fair of face and pockets deep

The other plain but kind and gay

He offered his heart but I turned away

From good to evil passion I did creep.

I promised to marry the true of heart

But glitter blinds one from the truth

I slipped away to play the part

A harlot, cheat and party tart

With the cad I spent my youth.

Older now and wiser too

Looking back I made my choice

He gave his soul to a partner true

While I sit alone my past I rue

The echoes of mistakes my only voice.

Love Destroyed

How did we end up so estranged?

We’ve loved each other many years

With words like swords we severed

Each others heart to shreds last night

In grief I wandered through the day

Wondering how to stitch the wounds

Repair the damage we have done

But only silence answered me

Quiet so deep we screamed without words

Wounded looks we passed each way

A home with boundaries, we dared not cross

Night enfolds but sleep evades me even now.

We've grown so distant you and I

I loved you once so much it hurt

But now the words; the damage done

Disdain consumes what love is left.