Home again and aching

My skin feels red,
slightly boiled from the inside;
joints ache like ungreased pistons.
My head’s a thousand miles away.
pauvre petite tête

It’s good to be home again again again,
though my thoughts echo and words stick,
like a taste on the palette that won’t let go.
Words like independence, like fortitude
and awareness, understanding and compassion.

I’ve an admission to make: I never cried.
Not with you watching, not alone when I said,
“I need to walk.”, neither before when I knew,
nor after when it was irrevocable.
My heart had been burdened by months of despair,
in the knowledge that this was the last time
we’d go through this; irreconcilable,
this time the outcome would be different.
We dragged it out well; both fighters, I guess.
At some point during those months, my heart
broke quietly, hidden in a corner, my stomach
convulsed and I curled up, shivering with the knowledge
that the universe was indifferent.

But I never cried, and if I seemed
to leave without a fight, it was because
how can I fight for something I can’t even cry over losing?

It’s neither here nor there,
perhaps a little of both.
Something I have to figure out before I move on?
Too many questions, like a magnet in my brain,
always pointing due wherever.

–

I watched Dogville last night with my mom.
It wasn’t what I was expecting, but begs the question:
how much can we forgive someone for acting out of fear?

No matter how cruel the town was to her,
the only time she cried was when they destroyed
the image she had of the goodness of the town;
seven, small porcelain figurines.