I’m telling myself to let go,

But let go of what?

Everything? My whole past?

Which doors must I shut

In order to be safe?

How much must I release

Before I can relearn

The path to peace?

 

Why am I back to this battlefield?

Would you think a garage

With his side blank and empty

Could bring on a barrage

So that I suddenly re-feel

The bullets of betrayal,

The smoking trail

Of tragedy like sniper fire

That rips the skin

And explodes within

My head and then

My heart?

 

A simple trip to the recycle bin

But when I turned, I fell

Into the old emptiness within,

As I saw the emptiness of his side,

That newly noticed space,

And I stared at the dusty inside

Of the garage door,

And on it a black strip of tape.

This is what caused the uproar,

The new downpour,

The memory war:

A strip of black tape,

Black tape to ease the scrape.

 

He put the tape there.

He always tried to park his car

Far back where

His car would not bar

The opening of our house door.

Usually, he would hit his mark close

And then the garage door

Would come down and close

Clearing his car just right.

But sometimes he might

Not be pulled in so tight.

The garage door would clatter

Down and scrape itself shut

Along his black car bumper.

The tape was to ease the scrape.

 

Black tape to ease the scrape.

Where’s the tape to ease my soul,

To help me escape so I can reshape

My life and adjust to my new role?

A door of severance is coming down,

Scraping my edge, scarring my surface,

Driving me back to a breakdown,

Blinded by rain’s raging and rusting embrace.

 

What we love, we will protect.

He took trouble not to damage his bumper.

With me he showed no such respect.

I was just a forgotten, former

Lover, who must feel once more

How much he did not care

For me his wife and for our son before

He left us in poverty and despair.

 

Say he was fire, but not that I was water.

Wasn’t I good at gath’ring wood, paying

A paper bill so there would be the starter?

I would not see the signs his smoke was saying.

The story told by his look of anger I denied.

He burns now in foreign sun that shines on earth

That’s not his own. His heart of heat once lived beside

The one who understood love’s worth.

Pollute of smoke. A sign unseen. Renewal.

Water puts out fire, but I’m still bringing fuel.