Raging bull - a monologue

Why all the shouting and the tears,

I cannot in my heart accept to bear.

Your vision blurred and eyes red shot,

I am a teetotaller, you promised me.

When angry or annoyed you do not talk,

The bottle there under your desk,

I know it but what can I do?

And there it goes and the windows open,

Screaming, screeching like a humiliated child.

nor I nor the neighbours deserve the spectacle.

Like the bull I remember from a childhood trip,

After mum died, dad took a year out.

And we travelled the world and saw there.

A cheap thrill that was,

A bull running through the streets,

And everybody dressed in white,

Screeching and shouting and laughing.

The poor bull cornered and frightened,

You could see it in his eyes.

I stood on the balcony holding tight to a hand

Like I did that day by the open grave.

Not finding the words to reach you,

But honestly, I am too tired to bother with your childish outburst, anymore.

This is no longer lust, nor love. Your hoof rips a gaping hole on the newly laid floor.

Laid by my father and where were you then?

Your brother’s garden needed laying with seeds again.

Stand still there and stop the gaping hole that tears your face like an open door.

From where I stand, I can see, the distance between us is now too wide,

The gap that ripped my heart too wide.

We truly are a sorry sight, you in full flow of what ails you, and me mute by the door,

Where I slowly managed to creep to on all fours from the sofa where I dropped my book.

And I know in my breaking heart.

My only safe move now is to flee but where to run, it is dark out.

The road quiet, the house too big but not safe for a while.

When the bull in the living room is raging again.

I can see Sophie behind her curtains. She is watching but I am not ready.

I can hear in the distance,

Your temper slowing down, like a whimper on the evening breeze, now.

It all feels quiet but today I am not going back.

I will move like a thief in the night to the neighbour’s back door

And rest on her sofa so old and full of dust.

A wedding present, just after the war.

Dashing in his uniform and proud he was. A good husband too, he had known hell

And came back not to me. But she was married by now,

All that was whispered over months through the fence.

But never did I think I would have to take up the offer.

Somehow today I have had my fill. Always tiptoeing around some ego that gives nothing back.

Why today you might want to ask? But I have no answer to that question,

I will mull over it for a long time and one day who knows I might smile.

Tomorrow I will fetch my life back.

But tonight, my body needs to rest, no sleep but coffee will be welcome.

Enough is enough!

And I am but a flick of dust

Standing tall, hiding behind the hedge.

So off I creep in the deafening silence.

The open door awaits when I creep round the corner.

No more hiding and running away,

To cool the beast and then come back,

Showered with sorries, kisses and roses.

I cannot abide their smell anymore and the red of their colours smirking at me,

Like the blood reminding me that I will never conceive.

Nor with him, nor with any other.

Cancer met me early and everything is gone. Maybe he could never cope with my dried-out womb.

So why did I say to myself every time.

Forget, it will sort itself out.

It was easier letting the raging bull, rage just the one more time.

Instead of admitting defeat. The ultimate humiliation,

He is not for you, said Bessie. My truest friend.

You sure about that, my dad asked gently.

When he was worried about me. As ever letting me go out and taste.

He was ready I know, waiting, with plaster and scissors,

To heal the pain and succour the heart.

And plasters again will cover my broken life.

Till the time when what is left,

a misstep of sort in the distance of time.

And me not understanding the waste of time

Spend on a fool’s hope

That just the once, all would be alright, without kisses and roses.

What creates the bull and how did I provoke all that rage,

Bottled up frustrations of the less loved boy.

When should I have left? Better never to have met,

A soul that looks to others for a salvation.

That can only be cure from within.