Closed Book By Kathryn Dillard

Closed Book

I am writing our names in chalk, watching them fade in the rain
Words once ricocheted off your tongue, pulsed in my brain
Your spit bruised me under the skin, no proof of breaking
I used to believe you when you said your mother is to blame
One million apologies without a commitment to change
I adorned myself with your rage, full of knots I stay.

I thought it was love to take a bullet for you. Good girl, stay.
Hyperventilating in the backyard, paralyzed by angry rain.
Grant me the serenity to accept the man I cannot change.
Help me stop crying for a second so I can hear my brain.
Child, do not believe him when he says you are to blame.
The wind is the only angel who may fill us to breaking.

He may be a tempest, but were you made for breaking?
Trust your blood’s resistance, singing do not stay.
Abandon ship even if you believe in love, no blame.
Now that I am flotsam, I like to shiver in the rain.
No more responding to screams with reptilian brain.
I float on the waves and trust their constant change.

Bending in and out of the trees, the colors change
Throw stones into the river, my reflection breaking
Wade deeper into the darkness, a candle lit in the brain.
When the waters rise to our hearts, promise you will stay.
Flowers tilt their chins and open their mouths to the rain.
Their lips stitch earth and sky together without blame.

When the mountain refuses to move, who can you blame?
The sun sheds its light on everyone, no matter the change. 
We can stay and watch the sky fade to gray in the rain.
Here in the garden, you can cry without fear of breaking.
Beetles shimmer in the path, beseeching us to stay.  
Words may echo in our shells, plaguing the brain.

I shed his hurtful words until I can feel my own brain
rising out of the shadows of my skull, free of blame.
I nurse it back to life, deleting the command stay
from its memory so it can embrace the change.
The pages fall over themselves like waves breaking
words from another lull me to sleep with their rain.

Stay the night if you want, free room in my brain.
Rain rattles on the windows, the ocean is to blame
Change comes, the cycle of abuse finally breaking.

Kathryn Dillard is an English teacher, single mother, and shaman becoming. She grew up in Missouri and settled in Northern California after completing her MA in English at the University of California-Davis in 2012. She has published fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry in print and online journals, and hopes to explore more experimental writing, but enjoys formal poetry because of its musicality and rhythm.