Cool Marble

I hit the ground
Issuing a cracking thunk
Fingers snapped and spread
Amongst chipped-off hunks
Without thought, I skid
Jumping to a running start
Any direction will do
But back up
Onto the pedestal
I fell what must have been
Yards from

No matter how rapid
My pace
Or how secluded my
Dusty hiding place
I feel grasping
In the space around my
Quickening heart

The beat …
Echos
E
Ec
Ech
Echo
Echos

I try to speak
Try to scream for help
My pleas drowned out
Her reverberating voice…
Telling me to

🛑STOP🛑

I feel myself slow
Against my will to flee
Footfall shrinking
Until I’m recalled
Never turning
Simply running in
esreveR

Like a film strip being
Tugged along by hand
Pieces, recalled to their place
Cracks, left to remind me
Of my fate

I retake my position
On the carved marble column
I was long ago ensconced on
Unbroken, unmoving, unspeaking
For all time

K.B. Silver

For years my mother tried to chisel at the mortar of my marriage. It was difficult to see at first; she always framed herself as the only person who could possibly care for me in both senses of the word. Every marriage takes time to start working and flowing easily, and her meddling pushed that point farther and farther into the future. It took a series of unfortunate events to reveal her true objective. Once I could see all of her attempts for what they were, the relationship was severed. I refuse to be trapped in a toxic relationship, no matter who it is with.

Thankfully, my marriage has solidified, and I get the support I need from the place it is supposed to come from. I have seen that many parents insert themselves into their children's marriages, and growing up as a bible reader, I have seen how this is against the very purpose of marriage. That two people come together to create a new family unit. Or, as Scripture phrases it, the two will become one flesh.

Gen 2:24, Matt 19:5,6