Offending Men

Sometimes I say the wrong thing.  I can think of three separate times when an innocent remark ended a relationship.

After breaking up with my fiance, Derek, a gur named Ricky took a liking to me.  He was cute and nice.  Being on the rebound, I couldn't stop feeling sorry for myself.  All my thoughts were about Derek.

Ricky was interesting.  He told me that his mother had been married seven times.  I don't know how many children she had.  With a background like that, I questioned Ricky's ability to have a relationship.  He told me that he was on psychiatric medicine.  I knew absolutely nothing about mental illness.  He asked me if I took anything.  When I was twenty I went to the doctor and told him I was nervous.  He gave me some little green pills.  That particular doctor lost his liscinse to practice medicine, because he wrote perscriptions to drug addicts.  Ricky said they may have been haldol.  I only tried them once.  Nothing happened.

Ricky took me to meet his brothers and sisters.  His brother had been experimenting with drugs.  He said he was on heroin.

I was living with my aunt and uncle, Royal and Maxine.  He came to their house to pick me up.  Whenever a guy would come there to pick me up for a date,  Maxine and Royal would interrogate him.  The usaually asked them about their last name, their relatives, where they worked, and their education.  Ricky told them that his mother was married seven times.  That was interesting enough that they didn't ask any more questions.

After picking me up, we drove around.  We ended up behind the capitol on Lovers Lane.  It seems like every city has a Lovers Lane.  The Salt Lake valley is especially beautiful when it is lit up.  Ricky asked me,
What are you thinking about?"I replied, "Derek".

Ricky didn't say a word.  He started up the car and drove me home as fast as he could.  I never heard from him again.

Holding up the Wall

When I was a little girl
at school, during recess,
I wandered around the asphalt playground
covered with litter.
As I was bouncing my ball
I felt conspicuosly alone.

I noticed a little girl, very pretty
leaning against the wall.
She looked as lonely as I felt.

I walked up to her
and said "Hi!"
She didn't answer me.
I thought we could be lonely together.
so I leaned against the wall
by her side.

Two lonely children
Holding up the wall.

Journey

I have holes in my shoes
not from age
but from walking and walking for so long
My clothes are tattered
My skin is red.
I am worn and gaunt
I feel like I won't reach my destination.
I cry for help
and I wait a long time
I look up and see people
concerned and awed at what they see.
They scramble around
trying to figure out how to revive me.
After some nourishment
and kind words
I slowly regain my strength
and I am on my way to try again.

Testimony

A chapel
like any other
furnished with benches, a piano and an organ
and a pulpit.

It was testimony meeting.
One by one people got up to express their feelings
about the gospel and their blessings.

This testimony meeting
a lady in a wheelchair
wheeled herself up to the front of the congregation
Her body was crooked and deformed.
She couldn't hold her head up and
had a hard time speaking.
She had cerebral palsy.
but when she spoke
we all understood.
She said, "I am so thankful for the gospel
and for my knowledge of the resurrection.
I know that when I am resurrected
I will have a perfect body
to live in forever.
I can't wait.

Dark

When I was a young girl
I tried to imagine my future.
All I could see was darkness.
I was afraid.
As I grew into that adulthood
Which I had wondered about,
I handled many situations

The darkness, a shadow
That incircled me
Like a disease, grew,
Until it surrounded me.
I was confused
Preoccupied with the talking and thoughts
In my head,
I didn't know if it was day or night.

As I try to imagine my life
In the hereafter,
I see the same darkness that
Frightened me when I was young,
Even though whenever I have come close
To going to the other side,
Either by illness or action,
I have experienced a peace
Greater than any peace
I have ever known before.

The Ranch

I had been dating Don for a couple of months when he told me that he told me that he came from a polygamist family.  He didn't expect me to keep going out with him, neither did I.  I stopped seeing him for about a month, but I missed him and was terribly lonely, so  I went to see him.  We started dating again.

He was a mechanic and never showered after a greasy days work.  He had shortcomings, but I still liked him.
He had four siblings.  His mother was married to a polygamist.
The kids were always talking about the ranch.  They said it was a hundred years old.  They liked going there.  I imagined a large house on a piece of land with horses and other animals.

The family was going there to do some dear hunting.  Don asked me to go.  We drove for hours on the desert.  It seemed like hundreds of mile, far away from everything escept sage brush.  We came to  an old adobe shack.  This was the ranch.  There was no electricity or running water.

When night came, the darkness was thick.  We could see absolutely nothing.

My bed was a sleeping bag on top of a straw mattress.  As I laid there, I heard what sounded like rats running and chewing in the walls.  I could hear one right above my head.  Suddenly, the cat jumped on the bed and leaped up to the wall above my head.  The cat then went down by my feet.  I could hear what sounded like bones being chewed.  When I woke up in the morning, there was a rats head on my sleeping bag.
Don and I eventually broke up.

Getting old

I am in my sixties.
I have been worried
about getting old,
since I was in my twenties.

It is here
I am wrinkled.
I have what looks like
a turtles neck.
My joints hurt.
I can't get out of the bathtub.
I can't remember where I put
anything.

I wish I could push a button
and delite old age.