The heavy aroma of lilacs.
which I never really cared for.
and roses always filled the house
just prior to my leaving.
But leaving is not the right term
for what inevitably came.
In those months of spring and early
summer I would now call it
Escape.
Year after year it was undeniable
that I would be sent to that
place of rain, that place of
the surefooted soldiers, My
Escape.
For even though I hated that place,
Even though you forced me to go
To that dreary pit of hell, in its own
way, it was still my
Escape.
On that last night, the night before
my departure, I would sit in my room.
Sit in my room writing in my book,
bound by a single rubberband as if that
strap of flimsy rubber could
Keep out the prying eyes of the world.
I would sit there writing of my
Escape.
Listening to the thunking of the cleaver
as you chop away at the smoking body
of some dead animal, I write.
I write in my secret of secrets book
of my pending
Escape.
I can picture you chopping and thunking
awaywith your cleaver, heaving your
breast that used to be suckled by me.
The ominous tone of the chopping
makes me think of last suppers,
and that death may awaitme
tomorrow. But it is not so much
a last supper, as it is a farewell offering.
Though I loathe to go, I loathe
to stay. And so, with all of my spring
thoughts down on paper, I open my
bedroom door, walk down the narrow
dark hallway to the kitchen, to begin
the ritual that will be my
Escape.