Speak Easy

Part 1
Remembering that she only wanted to escape him,
rest for a while,
leave her own skin,
stop the terror and fear and exhaustion,
sliding the razor along the delicate skin of her wrist,
caressing the fine lines.
There was no fear,
no fear of the pain,
no fear of the blood.
Parts her skin, a sliver of a cut,
watching the slim trail of blood,
thinking, "This is easy..."
just fall asleep and that would be THE END.
Blood congeals in a shallow cut
and was she serious or not?

Part 2
Later, he is lying there,
on the bed,
with tubes and bits and
pieces of plastic poking from him. 
He can’t ingest food,
he can’t really even breath.
Maybe he really is dying. 
She wants him to say
that he didn’t know
how to be a father. 
And he is lying there,
in the bed,
the flesh sagging on the bones. 

Part 3
Her mother walks into the room,
looking good for a woman her age,
the wrinkles about her eyes faint,
charming rather than faded,
a smooth southern voice that could soothe anyone. 
So gentle, so fragile. 
Her mother cautioned her to be quiet,
reprimanded her for making him mad,
silently watched as she was slapped to the carpeted floor.

She looks at her mother again,
makeup heavy, actually flaking at the eyes,
the lipstick all but worn away,
her hands, with the white/blue skin and the rings
and the folds, and there is her mother’s age,
in the flesh of her hands and her neck,
the neck that has held that head high.

Part 4
She looks at him on the bed
and he is just a man after all,
dying.
The scar on her wrist,
the puckering of the purplish tracery,
the gathers,
her mother’s eyeshadow same shade of purple.

"I am tired," she thinks.
She reaches out,
touches her mother’s hand on the hospital bed. 
I love you mom.  I’ll always love you.
But she can't speak easy aloud.