she wants to get away

i know this woman
in a maddening situation.
she's not where she wants to be.
she's not who she wants to be with.
"but such is life,"
she says. "when you plant a tree,
you can't expect it to come up
anywhere but where
you dug the hole."
after the children
have went to school,
and the husband is gone
for the day,
she sits beneath
a shade tree
with a book
and pretends that the story
is her life,
where it should have led,
who she should have been.
she often wonders
if there is an alternate her
out in an alternate there
living the way she
intended.
she wonders if this other her
is happy,
but she's sure she is.
"anything's better than this,"
she says closing the book
and placing it on her lap.
she stares off into the clouds
and wonders aloud,
"who the hell am i, really?"

when the children come home,
they scream for a snack
before diner.
they hit each other and cry.
they break the family picture
that was hanging in the stairway
that resembles the lie
she has lived for far too long.

when the husband gets home,
he makes a drink
and settles back
in his favorite chair,
unaware
that she is at the brink,
hovering over the sink
in the kitchen,
wanting so badly
to puke
it all away.

in the morning,
the children have went off
to school,
and the husband has gone too.
she's finally alone again
and takes a walk to
clear her head.

sometimes she wishes
she were dead,
but that's a silly notion.
she's more than aware
that's it's them
that puts that thought there.
it's the thought
of an ungrateful family,
regret for opportunity
lost ... in a type of purgatory
that makes her stomach clench.


and that's when an idea comes.
"maybe i just need to
be fucked. maybe i just need
a way to get away
from this and that
and those children. maybe
it's me that's the problem."

soon,
she meets him.
he's rough
and rugged,
nothing like the man
that comes home
in the evening.
this one is different.
he looks at her in a way
that makes her feel
wanted,
needed,
lustful,
upended.

every morning
she goes to see him
after the children
have went off to school
and the husband
has left for the day.
it's a way
for her to unwind.
she melts for
the texture of his hands,
the curve of his beard,
the edge of a smile
that comes from his eyes
when he stares
at her
for too long.

and she doesn't wonder
of that other her
in that other there
somewhere,
living the life
she always wanted.

"maybe one day
i'll just go away
and never look back
at what used to be
and finally see
that the life of the other her
is the life i want for me."