Withered Illusions

It is a memory from the rafters of days long gone.

It holds no dearness of heart or sweet song,

But brings a taste most vile when it surfaces.

At least the choice is mine, so I choose to

Resubmerge it along with sadness and tattered dreams.

When it rises, it transpires clearly

As though anew,

It haunts with a predatory nature,

Traipsing through buried scenes.

.

I see a single slipper, lying on a leaf strewn lawn,

Its pale pink loveliness decorated in small roses;

A stark reminder of beauty framed in man’s cruelty,

Its delicateness wrapped in the wrath of a man.

It is a frozen moment, emblazoned in impending doom,

A failure fueled by anger and drunkenness,

Manifested in a fist of rage supreme.

Time is cemented betwixt dark violence and pale weakness,

All hope tattered and destroyed amongst the withered leaves.

.

It resides deep, a memory best forgotten, yet

Resurfacing too often to tease and taunt

Replaying like a reel-to-reel old-fashioned movie.

The main character’s fist looms high as though he's Caesar,

Come to conquer Rome and its surroundings.

He strikes a pose of intimidation and swings,

The force and brevity of his fist unjust, unkind

As two sets of youthful eyes look on in abject fear.

She’s thrown, stumbles and falls,

Her slipper flying high, descending in an arc,

Landing with a thud on a bed of cracked leaves,

Its final resting place.

.

It was an onslaught, a barrage of emotions

Springing forth inside, scarring youth’s survival,

All within a single breath and heartbeat.

Disbelief, angst, disappointment, horror, anger, loathing,

And something more substantial, akin to hatred,

Sprouted, taking root, its intensity carried on wings of

Youth’s wide-eyed innocence.

A new perception of a man

Who dared call himself ‘father and husband’;

It flew away on wings of something sinister,

Crudely alarming in its cold, dispelling truth.

.

Life’s winding path of crevices can pivot,

Leaving one stumbling in efforts to spurn

The recurrence of such thoughts.

Still, despite the best of endeavors,

Steadfast and firm, they will latch tight.

Though years drift by, some slowly and some swiftly,

And a time of treasured golden haze arrives,

The struggle to reconcile the past remains resolute,

An impediment and harsh reality,

Encompassing the circles of our lives.

.

I think it will be never -

No, never though I live a thousand years -

Never will my mind erase the sordid memory,

Orchestrated in the crux of my soul's depth,

Of one solitary, rose encrusted, and pink slipper –

My dear, soft, sweet, treasured mother’s lonely shoe –

Discarded, much like her broken, dying marriage,

Upon a bed of withered brown and scattered leaves.

.

No, I think it will be never………….

No, never though I live a thousand years………