Trouble follows her everywhere
like a patient, re-usable lover:
ready, willing, eager at a moment’s notice to
stray with her into another binge
of uncharted adventures,
high above and far beyond the outer boundaries
of her inner compass.
Trouble lives and breathes to fulfill her needs,
the perfect companion when her stable, secure
world starts to drain away her passions;
when a prolonged state of peaceful co-existence
leaves her stranded in a foreign land where
smiles and kind gestures are obligations
instead of free gifts, and where
too many days of sunshine make her crazy
for some thunder and some lightning and
some pouring down rain!
And so, when she calls, Trouble always comes
to save her from the safety of a predictable existence,
to whisk her away to a more exciting place
where freak shows and fireworks
help quench her cravings for drama,
where clowns and creepy characters
dare her to fall asleep;
where party now/pay later is
the reigning rule of law.
But she never seems to remember that the
trash-scattering, window-shattering joy-rides
she enjoys so much with Trouble
inevitably end with a familiar parting image:
her, trapped inside a framed souvenir snapshot,
pleading with Trouble to leave her alone
in a bleak, black alleyway, flooded up to her ankles
in backwater from the sewer pipes
Trouble crashed her into,
praying for deliverance once again
from the blood-hungry tracking hounds
barking in the distance.
© 2016 Paul Howard Nicholas
Is she someone close to you but very distant? She sounds like she has an addiction to trouble which gives me the biggest clue as to whom you are writing about, which captures your attention like a bad distraction everyday.
Posted by: Mermaid29 | July 30, 2009 at 02:32 PM
She sounds like she is someone's daughter always caught in the wrong relatiohship. She sounds like someone I know personally. Our young women tend to look for love in all the wrong places and end up with "TROUBLE" no matter how hard we try to raise them right. It seems all we can do is continue to pray and that thy seek God's help to wait on love and learn to love themselves first.
Posted by: Phyllis C | August 01, 2009 at 08:08 PM