Some Words Herded Through My Mind

Elephant

when she was 12 years old

and guiltless, far too

innocent to decipher wrong

in nocturnal caresses,

rushed kisses converted into

sandpaper against her skin,

that was when her

tragedy started,

her inability to say no, a wild-eyed elephant,

stampeded the confines

of her girlish bedroom

it is hard to hide an elephant in closets,

hard to impress boys when it

chases you home from school,

never easy to explain

that the bottles of sleeping pills and booze

are the only way to make

a hide that big

completely numb

she had mastered overlooking

enormous shadows,

so much so

that it left her surprised,

the elephant,

too many years later,

sitting tuxedoed on the second row pew,

trunk extended like pre-teen leg,

trembling

and waiting to wear the garter

unsure of how to make it go

she simply said ‘I do’

and now it’s a part of her, massive,

like fears that he will leave her,

the unknowing husband, who never seems to notice it,

sitting at the foot of their queen sized dilemma,

tusks pointed, spear-like, anticipating his advance,

eyeing him as it would any

ivory hunter,

it doesn’t care that he’s never once hit her

it doesn’t care that, more than measurements, he

weighed her from within,

even waited, to fully seek her, on their wedding night,

but any honeymoon suite suffers

with 2 tons of anxiety in its bed

and yet he comforts her

each time that she flinches,

tells her he loves her, though it manages

to trample over the words,

and at night, she barely sleeps

too shaken by

thunderous footsteps that resound

like confessions for sins:

no’s that still go unheard

the ladies in the neighborhood

that go jogging with her

never seem to notice the bulge in her

pocket

it is sitting there, watching,

movements and strangers,

listening for noises,

preparing to charge,

the elephant knows what they don’t know,

what her 12 year old flesh was

forced to find out

too often

things die without sound