I learned to speak in circles,
twirl in skirts of red deceit.
Truth never bit me on the tongue.
I’d rather shut my body off,
a leaky faucet, watered lye,
than admit a single fault.
Confessions hid beneath
the cribbage board,
a no-man’s-land of holes
and pegs, don’t cross
to adversary lands.
Too many years between
the deed and shrapnel
haunting wounds.
I wound back time
to voice regrets and didn’t die
from honesty, only from
the shame it took so long.
published in Chewers & Masticadores
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