You came, telling me my siren’s song had drawn you near,
beckoning me to enter the Carnival Fun House
I entered willingly believing all I heard
Wanting to hear the fairy tale again and again and again
Lured by your long lost song
Brightly lit, flashing lights
Calliope tunes lending their accompaniment
Clever mirror tricks distorting your truth
You cautioned me
take
care of the little girl,
so
wounded by love and life that
she
could pull me under as she drowns
Take
care of the little girl who loves me so much that it frightens her.
She
will be kind.
She
will never stray.
…..promises broken like so many others
Threading gently around your tattered edges.
I fed your poverty with words of
Exultation, adoration and acts of undulation
Knowing, because you told me this and I believed, that one
well intended tug could unravel your emptiness.
Not knowing that the well intended tug could also send me
into your oblivion.
Populated by so many others
Good company if you must ask – beautiful women, whole in
their core save the
raw and gaping pit left in the wake of your destruction.
Your grief is strategic,
because “sometimes you
simply must bear that burden alone…”
you are afforded the autonomy to
deceive, lie and steal away into the night with yet another
victim.
Nights of passion unmatched….we said
Both of us were playing a part, you know
Truth was lies and lies were truth
Passion was perversion
and I fell deeply into you
Temporarily losing my senses, I was struck blind
Seeing only your reflection in the concave mirrors,
you were larger than life.
The world was my oyster, you said,
a gift from you to me.
But upon closer inspection,
the shell was empty;
no pearl, no mother of pearl even.
Empty.
You spun and twisted and wove your contorted tale
of unicorns, long lost love and lies,
of Dylan, Baez and heavily Dosed Peppers
of soulmates, music and happily ever after
of children, babies and family forever
of childhood stories of monsters lurking in the dark
and illness, slights and hurts
of daisies, butterflies and a wheaten Little Prince
I surrendered to your tale giving you all you lacked
Children, a womb and another notch in your perfect score
But something was amiss.
Too many unraveled ends
Too many unmatched cards
Too many unanswered riddles with twists and tattered turns
Shoddy work….
Too many unreturned calls
Too many days at a distance
Too many weekends in woe
Too many promises and privileges pulled away
Too many, lover, too many
So I questioned and puzzled and pondered
and was harshly scolded
Coldly, callously,
sadistically kept for weeks at a distance
while you enveloped yourself in another’s care
Not the one you profess you craved for your cure,
but the personification of the Weakness in You
kept local, kept close, kept and never left behind.
I stood stranded at the top of the Eiffel Tower
Confused, afraid and frostbitten
by the arctic freeze you blasted my way.
I blew warm breath through my hands to try to
clear the glass so I could better see you again,
my lovely long lost lover.
The heat of my breath collided with the frozen glass
and shattered the contorted Fun House mirror
into a thousand pieces
showering sharp slivers and shards
scratching and slicing and dicing me to ribbons
….and suddenly I saw you clearly
and realized that the monster you’ve feared in the dark….
was you.
~ Mk Michaels
