You made space for me

that postage stamp square

under the table and surrounded:

chairs, junk, dust bunnies,

the weight of your burdens.

I never stopped shoveling

through the detritus

that collection of your worst days ever.

A fruitless hope to find your hand reaching for mine at the other end

a glimpse maybe, in my direction

in passing

at your whim

the stuff of years:

anger, sadness, and confusion.

And me with my own burdens on my back,

yet glad for your dribs and drabs.

Happy, even,

for the impossibly tipped scale.

Then I saw my own face in the mirror,

and not yours,

leapt from that precarious height,

and away

from you.

Colleen Sohn

…

 p.s. Oh me, oh my, this is not about the dear hubster!

Up there

on your high horse

you grope in the darkness.

Blind to

azure

and

the midday sun.

Blind to

delicate wild flowers

braided in my hair.

Blind to

the sticky sweat of toil

and the gallop of my heart.

Blind to

 fractured limbs

and murmurs of pain.

You only know

the ache of your saddle

the blisters on your hands

the tempest on your horizon

an unfathomable loss.

Dismount

and

discover

it

and

we

are all the same.

Colleen Sohn