Escape

the woman in this poem is a mix of a lot of women I have worked with as a counselor, people I know and probably some parts of myself too. I went on a walk recently on the beach and was inspired

Her tracks are easy to see in the sand. For so long she has been dragging her dreams behind her, she can't bear to cut them free. She might float away. The weight is her burden. Her salvation.

  

The umbilical cord feeding those dreams is dried up and twisted, only connecting not nourishing what she pulls behind her.

Too many nights laying awake. Waiting for the slam of the screen door, his whisky colonge and the nightly ritual. Memorizing the stains on the ceiling while she waits for it to be over. Hatred and hopeless rushing in and fighting for her soul,  as he pulls his ego out of her and rolls over. She never really belongs to herself and can't remember a time when she did. 

Too many days spent chain smoking under the ceiling stains she considers feng sui. She likes to think the stains are of dragons and doves. She asks them questions. Hoping the answers will somehow appear in the smoke above her head. But her questions remain unanswered...so she smokes another cigarette and waits. 

Repeat. Wait. Repeat. Wait. Repeat. Wait. Repeat. Wait. Repeat. Wait

But today is different. Today she is here in the sand. Today she pauses by the rocks that have trapped movement and time. Wind or water? she can't really tell. She just notices the markings on the stone aren't of dragons and doves. And remembers why she is here.

She takes out a cigarette, the last one in it's red and white box. She lights it tenderly and inhales until she can't, noticing the only other inhabitants around. The black birds who make their homes in the cliff. They show her no interest. She looks up as she exhales the last of her cigarette, a look of controlled hope as she glances upwards into the halo she breathed out. Wanting her answer .....  the smoke is now gone. Peace now glows on the stage of her face,  a foreign sight replacing a perpetually grey mask.

A lovely fire burns so brightly now, where she stood just minutes ago. The black birds watch,  flames dancing in their eyes. Dragons and doves. Dragons and doves. Today was a different day.