EMBATTLED

“Sickness and a vacation from the habit of teaching…and I see myself, though I hardly recognize what I see. I would cry except that my sense of bewilderment is almost greater than my pain. I’m remembering the desperation that used to send me running out into the night in that first apartment. Now I pace the floor instead, from room to room, and as I pace, something inside me is coiling tighter and tighter.”

Restraints

“Moods come crashing down on me like buildings

And I’m laid out like a stone

Flocks of hope fly up before my eyes and are gone

As if they never were

And I don’t believe in anything…but restraints

I want to tear at something

Or dash off the edge of reality

Into the nameless…what?”