I want to visit a prisoner of a relationship of war
A victim & perpetrator in a crime of passion
For which he suffers incarceration:
A young man who never integrated his freedom
Who took blame by the elbow & made it a confidant
So now he lives with it (if his sentence truths out)
For ten years more.
Who made his prison?
Does he know he has the tools to escape?
Being a handyman, he knows tools…
Oh, he tried. I saw him trying. I heard his “no”
Echoing in her matrix of sensuous “yes!”
Who took his body on that wild
Nightmare of a ride through rage & pain
Of hurt & ill-wishing
Of all the darkness of a 2 a.m. vendetta?
What occupied his mind as he ran
From the scene
Shirtless, reeling with fever?
Did he try to think himself back to innocence
To that hour before vengeance overtook his mind
Overpowering his soul?
How could he know in that moment of lighting
The match he used for the pleasure of tobacco
To a world of merciless man-made justice?
Who is to say he should not pay, this youth
Made of abusive put downs & unmanned
By his own son’s cautious return into his life?
He, who will know little now of light
Bored beyond numb, attacked on all sides
Caught in unending scream, this
Boy-man snared by untrue love
By masquerade of truth
By the Jezebel of his own choosing?
And what of she … but I cannot admit her yet
Only knowing part of her soul squeals as only a
Trapped woman can.
I have no mercy upon her now, no cooling
Forgiveness for her unending miserliness
In wishing him such as he suffered at her hands.
I give this to Mercy with no words of intercession,
Only the mute knowledge of a mother
Wanting only to spare this son
His punishment.
I give this now, knowing full well the law will
Extract many pounds of flesh
Until it reaches bones & gnaws these to salt.
All for an “I’ll show her!”
He’s foresworn an entire lifetime
He might have spent in living
Had he spent a moment in thought.
I cannot end this here
Yet there are no more words to say.
Carol (for Brandon) 9/20/23
Riding the Light 
Compelling? And sad.
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The backstory is either Shakespeare or Soap Opera, I’m unable to tell. A young man I know who’s been maltreated by his dad lifelong … & in a mash-up of a relationship with a nasty woman who trashed his car – twice – in a fit of rage & Covid recovery, set her car afire. He is in jail, no one to bail him out & facing ten years in prison while she sashays about. A true crime of passion in which he loses hugely. We cannot live other’s lives or lies but they do teach us to pay attention to giving our power over to another.
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OMG so powerful and sad.
Thanks Carol
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So sad a tale, indeed! A true crime of passion & idiotic … After the second time his “GF” vandalized his car, this fella snapped, stole hers & tried to set it on fire. He was coming out of covid sickbed, had been down for days with this & she knew all of it, choosing that time to attack. Now he may be jailed for ten years. He had just reconnected with his young son & family; his dad died & he felt responsible… one thing atop another. So many consequences of heartbreak.
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