~Letters from the Monastery of My Heart: X~

By WordWulf, 3rd Mar 2011 | Follow this author | RSS Feed | Short URL http://nut.bz/k-8.tzky/
Posted in Wikinut>Writing>Letters

~Stratification of existence~voices ringing~people fear death more than pain~loneliness more than both~strange~without music life would be a mistake~from the garbage dump~in love there is no wrong~long years of it erased by a moment of hatred~

~Letters from the Monastery of My Heart: X~

~A Child Left Alone~

~A Child Left Alone~

There is no one in this life to trust, beginning with those who say they love you most. Life is a steamroller of distractions, loyalties and responsibilities, a confusion of ends. “It’s not that I don’t love you but I must go there, meet them, do that; you wait.” Anger is the stepchild of child abuse.

There are nine faces hanging in the mist, Gods and demons, siblings of Christ. Mother must have worn a deep masque, a shelter from the onslaught of life to hide her hate, to hide her love, to hide her rising up from her dying bed trampled by a herd of geese grazing.

You are a church woman, a saloon woman, a sycophant of shared spirituality. Careful where you hunt, lobo, I tell myself. These sheep will tear out your lonely heart in a roomful of hugs and kisses, group gropes, barstool, pew, gentlemen dancing between her legs.

We kept the baby warm in the straw. It stunk of vomit and goat piss, our father with his eighty cent bottle wine and the horned creatures with devil eyes. My brother, the thief, shoplifter, fed us. Mother, woman, can’t you see it is cold in here. Have you no mercy for the icicles driven into my heart.

Let me tell you something about yourself, woman, the grim totality of your love and spirit, how you confirmed and verified my existence. I feel as if my license to love has expired. It seems appropriate I’d be ill in this lonely room, die a thousand mini deaths each night which is why I came to be here.

At the end of my travails there is light. The transparency behind me has exploded into full view. My monsters are hiding under the bed waiting to take me with them. Thoughts of you hold them at bay. In spite of yourself, you manage to save me night after night.

~Tom (WordWulf) Sterner~
~Letters from the Monastery of My Heart: IX~
~Whiskey Man~
~Whither Go Watching~

Meet the author

WordWulf
Tom Sterner lives in Redding, California and Arvada, Colorado with wife Kathy. He has been published in numerous magazines and on the internet, including Howling Dog Press/Omega, Skyline Literary Review, The Storyteller, and Flashquake. His interne...(more)