Lost Year
Lost Year
I did as you told me
I found myself a lady
I sat at her table
I ate what she gave me
I had a backyard
and each day I went to work
and I came home
to wooden floors
and matching bowls
I was careful with the bottle
and the gun beneath my pillow
and I lay beside my woman
in the light of open windows
in the light of a newborn sky
in the life I agreed to find
in the night
I rose
In the dark
I walked
My feet were bare
My heart was locked
In the car in the garage
Where I didn’t try to leave
Where I sat behind the wheel
And I didn’t turn the key
and I let you be gone
I tried let you be gone
From me.
Well, I sometimes woke up violent
When I couldn’t stop from dreaming
And I sometimes scared my woman
so she didn’t want to touch me
In the mirror I was searching
for a scar where you had hit me
for a mark upon my body
to remind me that you'd loved me
once, in a lost history
before I was healed-up clean
but in the night
I rose
In the dark
I slipped
From my lady’s bed
With my heart still clipped
To the car in the garage
Where I didn’t try to leave
Where I sat behind the wheel
And I didn’t turn the key
And I let you be gone
I tried to let you be gone
From me.
– Olivia Chrestomanci, esbeani@lj
