Drowned

Like feet in well-worn shoes 

that rub against the sides

and feel the loosening of years,

she feels the sameness 

deadening all her tomorrows,

a numbing void of feeling,

dry, like old newspapers,

the story never told,

long overdue;

like stinking laundry,

enduring the drowning crush

of Cheer

and bleach

and dryer sheets.

Going through the motions

- the everyday routine -

the radio blasting out

the story of her life

in wailing notes on metal strings,

while dinner simmers 

on a pristine stove,

a baby's bottom washed,

an aging parent soothed,

a scuffed knee bathed and dressed,

a once-but-no-more lover

fed and watered.

The table cleared, 

the hum of busy dishwasher 

drowns her life.

The quiet evening light

sifts through her drowning eyes,

which search with fruitless stare

for some new vision

of a sharp and brilliant future.

Nothing appears 

to change the awful sameness.

The floods break through the dam

of eyelids swollen by old tears, 

newly minted

in the furnaces 

of expectations

and anticipations 

disappointed.

The familiar, no longer safe,

entombing a dying spirit.

© 2011