Cinnamon Mist

Home alone, heavy silence.  Dawn, yet to show her colors.  The weight of my sins leave me plastered and numb to the chair.  At least my eyes could stare out the window.  Thank heaven, the strength to open the blinds in the living room hadn't deserted me before grief came kicking its way in and knocking me on my ass.  The phone call was like a sword used to cut out a splinter instead of a needle carefully coaxing the pain out.  No sympathy exists for either of the conversants.  Both rise, weapons drawn and ready to wound.  The brutal surgery leaves my heart slowly beating on the dark wood surface. My body, waits patiently to shudder with its last breath, imagines the timing would be with the last weak beat of my broken soul, the accompanying words, "It's all your fault."  Horrible thinking I can die, un-absolved.

The rosy fingers of morning peek over the hills.  I want to feel the wonder, the miracle of birthing a new day.  Instead I close my eyes against the positive, allowing the tears to well over for my losses and forcing myself into realizing the undeniable. It is and always will be a two-for-one deal.  Sobs wrack my body, while indulging in self-pity, for how long was unknown? The sun, pierces my personal darkness, orders me to view the invading light.  It was like the voice on the other end of the line.  He is cold and righteous while informing me of my treason. The reasons for the end.  How I caused the death of all that was good in the world.

Suddenly, the sun is above the hills, journeying west across the high desert.  Is it really the afternoon?   The birds flit hungrily between the yards.  While  chattering away their complaints, rabbits timidly creep into the yard, looking for the scraps of compost I deliberately dropped on my way to the worm bin.  I want to feel guilt for not fulfilling my daily duties.  Instead, I wonder if I was alive, for hunger did not wake my belly.  The heart barely pulses against its current position on the floor.  Instead words, like the air, invade my space, pulling, demanding to be examined.  Beating against my mind.

I left a message last night. It severed all claims he had on me and I on him.  Freedom was given on both ends. My inner peace was restored.  I was simply to spend the next few weeks in recovery.  That it was shattered so easily by my enemy lover was a sour defeat! Relief was supposed to be his to cherish. The asshole was successful in making it all my responsibility.  Bitterly deciding that it was easy to win when attacking a person who had been asleep at four in the morning!  Dreaming of a future unhindered by the unwanted. His accusations of murder. Yet, he had been the one to attack me recently, causing injuries to two.

As I try to follow his train of thought that he had after the witching hour, and my pathetic agreement to his logic, the sky begins darkening.  A howling wind tears through my backyard, the animals vanish in minutes before.  Slam! Slam!  The old fence on both sides violently fall, raising reddish sand.  The dirt gathers in cyclonic fashion turning the clear day into a cinnamon haze.  The dust devil dances toward the house.  I remain sitting, frozen.  Somehow my heart fearfully returns, thumping against my chest.  Then I stand, mesmerized, lethargy gone, meeting Mother Nature's wrath.  Whispering to the pitted glass that I am sorry; I never meant to be out of control with that man; I never meant to destroy two families; I never meant for the baby to die.  The tornado charges the window. Shattering flying shards forcing me back. Tripping over my blanket-tangled feet, I fall,  raising my arms futilely against a glass rain. Abruptly as it appeared, it is gone. Eerie stillness reigns, the rose brown still shading the skies above my house. I murmur a prayer of grief and gratitude.  A faint voice in the settling mist responds, "You'll join your baby later."   On my knees, head lowered,  youth's arrogance humbled, I kept repeating my words.  And I know, as dusk slips in, that somehow I am forgiven.