On certain nights they come back,
all those memories I worked so hard
to forget: all the lies and the dishonesty
with which you smeared our lives,
never ending threads twisted and turning
in endless circles like children running
heedless with sparklers, sparks raining
to the ground like tears.
But at 42 or 50 or 60 one needs to be grown
in some places.
Places where lies lived and breathed
and wove their dirty fingernails
into my flesh like wood-burrowing insects.
Tempered by fire while I burned inside.
On certain nights they come back,
all those memories I worked so hard
to forget.
A Writer's Life 