Betrayed

Already you have dragged my heart
to death's dark door,
forced me to stand sentinel
with my soul bared against
all the whispers from it's shadowed maw.

When Orphyeus' string broke
the snake startled, struck
and not all the song in the world
could redeem that discordant note.
I hear it ringing still.

How dare you take my love
and hammer it into chains?
To tie it tight around my neck
let loose your weight
and call it freedom?

And can Persephone once bought
with the ruby juice on her lips
be free again from her oath
though it binds her still
in death's kingdom?

The stories tell us time again
that death, the traitor, always wins.
Love outrageous, love once mine
can only last as long as two undivided
stand as one.

hostile territory

We fought first
about the fair distribution of comforter
resorting at last to a peace of separation
with each their own blanket to clutch.
In the 26 days of your despair,
I have tried every way I know
of reclaiming our bed.
I have spread books by the stack
heavy with sentences I know
to provide counterweight against
my tangling of the sheets.
I have crept far to the side
toes extending off the edge
to decrease the chance that sleep
might sprawl me into the gaping hole
of your absence.
I've tried centering myself
with deep breaths as though
there were never two sides to this space.
I have stolen your pillow,
washed the sheets in newly scented soap,
spilled lavender oil into the mattress.
I've curled around the baby
with his chubby limbs akimbo
absorbing all the space he can.
I've stared out the window,
counted the seconds by the glow of my phone.
I've given it up all together
and cried into the couch cushions.
Now in this separation,
I surrender.
There is no peace
and less sleep.

MDD.

This disease knows no boundaries.
It disregards any demarcations
I have tried to build.
It strikes on holidays, on holy days,
on days when I have pleaded for peace.
It poisoned the floor of my balcony
with broken glass and pill shards.
It interrupts my dreams, disrupts my breath,
destroys the areas I had marked safe.
There is no negotiation.
Only the demand that despair
come quickly and in many shades
with darkness indulged in every corner.
There are days it's not a disease
but a demon.

Third.

There are birds that sing in the middle of the night.
I know this because my window is rolled down
while my headlights light up the spray of the sprinklers
and it is hard to remember the gate code at 1 am.
It has been a long day.
It takes three tries.

He has tried  three times.
I know because I have heard the story
to each doctor, over and over again.
Today I took the suicide note
out of my husband's jean pocket
where he meant for me to find it
later. 

I gave it back to him,
told him I wouldn't claim it,
refused the weight of grief he tried
to tie around my neck.
It has been a long night.
There has been night after night
and days so dark, I can't recall the sun.

But tonight, there is a bird singing
in the blackness that envelopes me.
Tonight I soaked up death with charcoal
and tomorrow I will set it ablaze.
There is a bird singing in the dark
and I can damn well sing too.