Mel opens the door, umbrella stupidily still in his grip. It was a habit that annoyed her, carrying it to the mud room before the back porch. The irony was of course that when they bought the house she insisted on the laundry room that was originally there be converted into one. “Just imagine,” she would argue, “the children dropping off their golashes and raincoats there and their soft socked feet prisitne while they scattered about.” Slowly he descended the staircase.
Where were the children?

He had come in, the house was dark, empty, still. Where were the children?
Sopping wet on the wood floor, squishing across the hallway into the dining room. His umbrella was still in his hand, much good it did him. He could barely make out the garage door when he turned into the driveway. Still he could hear, like a ringing in his ears, the insistent drum of the rain against the roof.
Where were the children?
Rain off his chin, “Hello? Jonathan? Caitlin?”
Not even Molly, his ex wife’s german shepherd, with her lame leg and half bitten ear. He used kick the dog when the neighbor’s weren’t looking. Now, over the years, particularly this summer he had grown attached to the mongrel, almost found her regal. From the dining room he could see into the pantry where they had set her bowl, full and untouched.
Where were the children?
Often driving home through the seasonal thundertorms that ripped through Newport he thought of her, her ability to turn from lover to ghoul in an instant.

what i write is never what i read only a broken influence, a misinterpretation, a misrepresentations of events. she scarred me. she healed me. i sat languorously on the edge and watched it all happen. or rather, i did everything and they watched me from the sidelines with bated breath, hands to their chests, clasped in the hopes i might turn in their direction. but al i saw was the field and a never ending sprint that i could not finished. she sighed. she mocked. i tripped. i stumbled. on my knees i let go of everything and found i had it all.

what did we do yesterday?
went to the zoo.
what did we see?
an orangutan eat penguin. a child kick a peacock. a mother nurse a lamb.
what did we see?

“If you can’t stand in place, you can’t tell who’s walking away”
-death cab for cutie, “pity and fear”
Redolent, dressed in blood red, beautiful skin fresh and pale, the cut of her smile and eyes eager. No one would think, no one would believe I had it in me to garnish such beauty, that I would be this lucky. That somehow in almost breaking her we would come out the other side into the very peace I thought I had leave everything to find.

we crack, we break, into dawn, she’s asleep, painful and dread, the slippage yawns before our feet, slippery, she slips, i fall, ahead and tumbling, there would be scars and i would welcome them, i would tend to them, a garden of retribution, all at her heel, gentle, gentle, stained glass ground deep into the palms of my hands.