Memories

I asked once if the memories would ever return.
She asked me if I wanted them.
I shuddered.
 
There are five,
one tied in a chair,
the others, belts and showers,
being tickled on laps
where hard objects poked my back,
 
and there, Cascadias flew.
picking me up I spiraled looking down, and
I watched the terror in surround sound.
 
"No," I replied. "Keep them.
I'll retrieve them when I get to heaven."
 
It's an angry ride,
somewhere between live, die and survive,
where darkness continually
chips away at the light.
 
They say that hell rides
in chariots with gleaming eyes.
I say it lives in the hands of every man
who pushes his way
between a child's thighs.
 
Shocking it seems,
to be this undone,
to let the words out
in whispers instead of shouts.
 
Don't cover your ears
or live in fear of truths,
there are thousands of them
just like you.
 
I see what fuels the wicked,
the absence of forgiveness
and the forgotten purpose
where hunger replaces thirst.
 
"Sometimes being a warrior
feels like death." She said.
"Like the words never reach their head,
until their souls are dead."
 
The pictures arrive like gradients,
as I shake and scatter
like etch-e-sketches.
 
Sometimes peace comes in forgiveness.
Sometimes it comes in revenge,
but everything comes full circle
when we finally arrive at the end.
 
Mercy comes in knowing,
that they carry the memories instead
when the tears turned to liquid
on an angel's haloed head.
 
There's comfort in the distance
with the images in the fray.
They chase me down like ghosts,
as I scramble to get away.
 
Memories float like diamonds
leaving blood stains in the mine,
and I am left to wonder
what the past has left behind.
 
~vennie~
 
copyright @ dbv publishing 2011