Fault Lines

You taught me to fear the silences.
Like the eerie quiet of nature before a seismic event,
They descended, ominous
Harbingers of doom.
Every pause pregnant with dread
A warning that disaster was imminent.

Each one left me scrambling
To uncover what horrible
Transgression triggered the
Latest tremors,
And what I could do to appease
The demon.

But that was as effective
As the ancient priestess
Sacrificing to the god of the volcano
Desperate to stave off eruption.

The explosion always came.

How odd now it feels to dismantle the
Inner seismometer,
Lose the habit of duck and cover,
And realize that I wasn't responsible
For the shifting along your fault lines.

Now that I've moved away from  the epicenter
I see clearly
Your continental drift was beyond
My control.

Aspiration

Someone recently pointed out to me the relationship to reading (breathing in)
and writing (breathing out).

I can certainly concur.

I have been panting, taking in everything - all the evidence, the elaborate explanations.
Inhaling the stories, the circumstances, the conditions.
Every thing you spewed out, I took in with gulping breaths,
Holding it all in until my lungs felt like they would burst.

It's toxic, and yet I was afraid to exhale, unwilling to release it.
So I held my breath until I was weak.
Like a child throwing a temper tantrum, I held until I passed out.
Then the survival instinct kicked in - breaths came shallowly,
But my body was so desperate to hang on to  that old, stale air.

The run forces me to breathe deeply,
And afterward, the pen pries my stubborn lips apart.
In and out.  They conspire to make me inhale the new sights
New faces.  Fresh and clean.  Bright and buoyant the cool air comes.
And to make room for it, I exhale deeply, and breathe you out.

Breaths become sobs, but each one cleanses
Wracking and squeezing out the poison.
Until there is nothing left for me to do
But breathe.

Place for Rent

This place was a mess
When I got the listing.
Dark, stuffy, Oppressive
And, boy was it wrecked.

Had barely been
Maintained at all...
20 years of constant occupancy,
And very little upkeep.

The last tenant had to be
Forcibly removed after.
A lengthy eviction process,
He left the place a shambles:

Structural damage,
Walls kicked full of holes,
Overflowing with his garbage,
It took months to clean it all out.

It's a great little place - Has good bones.
Great location.
Quality neighborhood.
But golly was it a mess.

It's since had a complete renovation.
We started from the foundation up.

Tore up the ratty carpet and found
Gorgeous hardwood floors.
All polished up now.

Knocked down a few walls
To open up the floor plan.
Now a fellow can breathe in here.

Freshened up the paint,
Cleaned all those dingy windows.
Now it's lighter, brighter.

Still a few scars from
Past occupants, but in the business
We like to call that "character."

It's available now, but
We aren't advertising.
Instead we're relying on word-of-mouth.

Of course, with all the
Improvements we've had to
Raise the rent a bit.

If you asked me, that was the trouble before.
The rent was too low.  You have to set a
Higher price to keep out the riff-raff.

Still, considering all you get -
The quality of the location
It's quite a bargain.