you shoot at me

arrows hailing from the sky

like i’m wearing a bulletproof vest

except you know i’m not

beneath the dark cloak

i am still the same girl you used to sing to every night

who rushed to your arms at the first sign of danger

and somewhere within me she’s still there

bottled up like grapes pressed into wine  

with old memories retracting from my hands with each day  

and faces of people too insignificant to remember

but losing track of someone you once were isn’t a crime

so why am i sitting with metal crunching my frail wrists

rotting away in a chamber because of your past mistakes

you were supposed to climb into the cellar of auld lang syne  

and grapple in the darkness for my beaten soul

that you left behind when i wandered too far in the grocery store

i cannot continue to give parts of myself to all my yesterdays

because soon i will run tomorrow out of business

but it’s been so long that if i were to pull off my hood

like the unveiling of an artist’s masterpiece

i don’t think you would recognize me

there was magnanimity churning within me

vines spreading from limb to limb

flowers growing in my voice my touch my smile

all given life to by the water mill at the center of my heart  

but you were blind to accomplishment

blind to benevolence

blind to a world of forgiveness of indulgence

so pressed under rocks spilling from cliffs of neglection

my heart finally splittered

and without water my plants shriveled up and cracked

and their hanging corpses are the only memory of the person i almost was