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Outside

Act 1

She stepped outside, leaving a hole where she was. The child was crying, the husband was punished, the winged warrior in flight, to catch her.

No beginning or end, a phone call makes the point.

Laughing, spinning in the night they met. I wish to remember the dialogue that captures, and holds. To share this with you. That you may remember.

Her name was Chris and she was light.

Drifting, racing, night comes in, the tide rises, lost.

A sliver of the moon reflected on the water and sand.

Timeless even now.

"Hello"

"She's asleep now"

"I got her a present and put it on her pillow"

"I know that feeling, that you feel"

"A walk"

"Sunday?"

"I bought you peanuts, but I ate them on the way"

"That's ok I like to eat the shells"

We took that walk. Me in a suit that did not fit, her in white.

Act 2

I put away my name in the beginning, searching for my self. Yet the person I found I didn't like so I kept looking, to this day. And tangled her in this foolish search. Bonding with no direction, no goal, to this day.

I found a path in that search. What is this in my life? Desperate for meaning. And the path outside said to rest within.

Now bounds, lost in one room. With crossed signals we hurt. This is such a familiar place, to this day.

"Can't you take the day off"

"No I have classes"

"She's been playing cards all day"

"My supervisor"

"He's a jerk, a womanizer, smokes dope"

"He has a boat, won't you come"

"I made out with him"

"Why not do it"

What was right? All tangled.

She stepped outside.

So sad, I couldn't hear,

So sad, I couldn't cry,

So sad, I couldn't let go.

Act 3

A quiet time followed until the dance was spoken, born from guilt carried.

Funny, I had no idea.

numb, don't know why, to this day.

I guess the betrayal of the mother to the child, abandoned. Just people acting not really knowing the consequences. Actions and perceptions, rarely the same. Abandoned, a lonely feeling at three maybe four and forever after.

Can a mother see the child?

For this sharing of the guilt dance, in India, she was there with me. But I struck out. This anger I can't understand. My actions set their course in fear that has come to this shore. Drawing in and striking, so angry at some shadow striking striking striking. So foolish between hiding and hurting striking at shadows.

I am alone, it is my nature I believe.

India