Honesty Didn’t Kill Me

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