defense

stonewalling
gaslighting
silent treatment
not ready
to
talk
discuss
feel
emote
display
anything
meting out punishment
through
hopeless response
doling out
socratic attention
question
for question
lack of engagement
assigning blame
ready
in your
own time
is no one
worthy
of your
magnanimity

punishment

lightning strikes
as silence
immobilizing
exacting
discomfiting
interrupting
the perspective
horizontal
exchanges
become
vertical discharges
with dark
branches
escalating
disagreement
misspoken
words
charge the air
unintentional
delivery of
lightning ribbon
wounds
indelible
to the eye

residence

rejection
dissection
opening up
old wounds never quite healed
just not bleeding
discovery
of faded and forgotten
fears
there they are
holding hands
laughing
smiling
lovers
going nowhere
recalcitrant squatters
finding comfort here
in this place
you call your heart
evict them
you have places to go

bombastic

genuflection

knee-jerk response

worship at the altar

of all you’ve heard before

no single thought is your own

must be true

you heard it

somewhere

isn’t that what makes you

you

always doubting

never questioning

bumper sticker theology

cereal box philosophy

tshirt phrases of verbal conundrums

stay confused

No more waiting . . .

the shoreline is washing away .  .  . and still we sit
inertia holds us back
the comfort of not thinking of what could be
 what should be
get up and shake it off
the sand
the lethargy
wash away the flotsam & jetsam
it won't work for you anymore
dive down
grab hold of the derelict
that which you thought was gone
bring it up and out into the light and air
don't hold your breath too long
it is still there
just not forever

janet aldridge sullivan

Sometimes someone else says what we cannot . . .