She folded herself inside the variety of sunset in a patchwork quilt,
Squares that glimpsed a journey embalmed; soothing itself in time.
Wading through a siren field of wanting she knew that
Yesterday is spiral; an enigma.
Tomorrow was safe and her skin did not shimmer.
All that remained was a word on a random dictionary page
And all of a sudden her life made sense.
She cleansed the heart of her breathing
Like a maypole ribbon twisting through the bones of her ribcage.
Sinews trapped in her teeth; the resistance of an aching jaw.
Too much speed grinding on his gums.
Her story becomes nothing but rehabilitation of her desire for closure
As she sat under a pale blue light and followed the stillness with her eyes.
The tense and the context confused on a screen.
The twisted iron claw of date rape and frozen nerves were just
A memory in the distance of his dulled apology.
The fading lines on folded yellow paper held twenty years in a bear hug
And she bit down hard on the tongue that held his mouth.
The words she used had been a personal resonance of an etched ghost lit by Tesla.
And now it is time she let it all go and fire his actions, cast his words out;
Detention lines; chalky, grubby white and fading.
In the powder blue room she pulled the quilt over her shoulders
And with the weight of the world turned the page in her hand.
She re-read the words and twenty years sighed smoothly.
It was just a ghost in her machine, a ghost and a faded whisper.
This is a lesson
