You Wonder

Every time I come down with an illness or ailment, I wonder what I did wrong to cause it. I blame my self for either doing something wrong or not doing enough right. Bad things happen. I stand arms outstretched and eyes shut tight, perpetually rolling dice feet firmly planted on the world I created.

I did this. I made this happen. I deserve to suffer because...because...I let that happen.

I love to listen to the night as no clouds are in my way. All clear, the riverboat captain says as the seven year old girl is trapped on the boat, the stinking, smoke belching boat that is steaming full speed down the river, into the rapids. Even from such a great distance, she can hear waves pounding on jagged rocks. Oh, she knows her fate alright. Don't let her fool you, she ordered this boat.

I thought it would be a fun adventure...

Slamming into the rocks, heaving and hoeing, engine still running full steam. Splinters and paddles flying up in the air, no sound save her own soul weeping away. And then came the thunder, the caconic bombs and the big man, angry, chases her around with a broom, no a paddle in his tight fisted hand. And she quakes as she shivers as she runs in the spray, in the rain, in the cascade of her life breaking apart.

She stops, just to breath, to listen, to hear, searching for the telltale footprints that always stalk at night, when it gets quite, before dawn breaks, and she freezes, is frozen, choosing the death of paralytic fear over feeling such pain. She becomes one with the numb...losing her self to save her so and she crashes both hands together as if a wish might break the spell of this dream, the remembrance of how her life crashed, caught fire, sank and burned...with her mistake. Remember, she ordered the boat set sail.

At night, even the trains are muffled, soft, distant and unobtuse.