Freeze response

a nightmare turned shame turned memory

Something wicked crawls out from my consciousness in the night.

a feeling that drags contorted limbs

across the carpet.

I wake within its presence

feel it cower beneath the bed.

undressed / vulnerable

it remains through the day in fragments, almost memories.

my reasoning at the time felt so solid

my rebuttals

my disbelief all clink together,

as cubes in the glass.

bobbing atop the cool water of your voice,you are indifferent

sarcastic even.

sharp. glass words slice at me.

you pack them tight with intention, impossibly heavy, I’m pelted

with cement snow, a cruel smirk.

incredulous at my frozen tongue.

I cannot reply.

every excuse thin and wanting,

I stand on transparent ice.

seeing myself below

failing

flailing to make sense

when their is none.

I say

I was selfish.

I was young.

I was foolish.

I didn’t know.

I should have done more.

I should have been better.

there are ways I remember you  outside of myself.

before I existed.

a young man with long

and flowing hair

a tank top a temper.

the window cracked open to the sound of crickets and the party in the shed.

staring at Donna

all the dreams you had at 19

and they came true.

you two made it to almost thirty years.

even younger hunting rabbits

which traumatized your soft

cushy heart

that you’d give to me one day.

farther still to your grandfathers house heads bent over a geode memorizing the curvature.

how proud he was of you

and what you created

his first grandbaby

he carried her picture in his truck

on a board he shellacked

at the kitchen table I’m molding a face, sticking my fingers deep in the sockets. How many times did you invite me to work in clay?

to come camp

to make time, to spend time.

I come to the chasm edge

there is no more time

pebbles fall & echo forever.

I want more.