Hana's Chapel

Over the rocks poured foam and cats-eye water

and I sat quietly-

new veins angry on my wet skin.

I took mortar in my mind and bricked up the wounds,

lay walls so that the glass flood does not shatter

in the rest of my mind.

No parent should have to bury their child.

The embroidered iron gates have been broken down

with quiet words spoken on stone rooftops.

Guilt was the battering ram clawing at the doors of my grief.

They have broken into that tiny chapel in my mind and released the waters there.

A stone building painted pure white with windows

that blaze with internal light, reaching for the sky.

There was a vase on a thin, rose-legged table. It is in pieces now

and its contents flow and multiply and creep up the walls.

The flood will come again when the barriers break. And they will break.

Death would be bliss, living is my torture. 

I am sitting outside the chapel with my hands against the door,

screaming for the dead girl whose tomb lies within.

But I cannot bring myself to open the doors. I cannot bring myself to drown.

My duty is to the living.

Just someone please, come stand beside me before the white door.

I cannot do this alone.

• 
• 275 of 816
•