This Time

This is a poem I wrote last year, but I haven’t been brave enough to share it.  My prompt was to write a poem that contains the words: time, wasteland, shelter, deceit, unforgiving, and Sandman. It’s one of those poems that, the moment I read the prompt, the poem kind of wrote itself in my head. Anyway, here it is:

 

It appears you don’t know
this time there’s no going back.
So many years spent
trudging through the
wasteland of our
marriage;
you knocking the life out of
anything that stood in your path
which somehow—every time—was
me.
Disconnected memories
f l o a t
around the surface of my mind;
bobbing, going under, resurfacing,
always in turmoil,
and this is the life I’ve known with you.
It hasn’t always been this way,
there was a time when you were my
shelter,
with the storms that crashed my rocks
not so easy to withstand,
but you were there,
with your sandbags full of love, and your
joy for life that
made me believe you were my hero . . .
but you weren’t,
instead, you were a new
punisher,
using your knowledge of all my
skeletons
to your advantage,
and your deceit
sent me flying across the room.
It’s funny how
unforgiving
a fist in the face
can be, and
no matter how
repulsed
you were the next day,
my respite never lasted for long.

Something inside me has shifted this time,
our tectonic plates too smashed
to stick back together with superglue,
so I won’t even try,
I no longer think we’re worth
fighting for
I have to give you up,
like a drug that’s slowly killing me,
and when I sleep tonight,
it may be fitful at first,
but the Sandman will come and
sprinkle his magic over me;
healing my body and mind,
and my dreams will have hope—
not fear—
and for the first time
in my life,
I will not be afraid.