"Apology"

Sorrow fills me   
I disappointed you     
            let you down   
I didn’t see your struggle   
            hear your plea   
            pay attention   
I let my obsessions bleed into your heart   
I took my desires and poured them into your life   
Now you overflow   
            with my pettiness   
Shame fills me   
            weighs my movements and halts my thoughts   
I hurt you   
            caused you distress   
I didn’t listen to your words    
            watch your face   
            walk in your shoes   
I am sorry    
            chokes my breath and spills from my eyes   

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"Poison"

Inside   

           buried under smiles   

                     as innocent as childhood   

           hidden by energy   

                     that eats the inner core   

           enveloped with laughter   

                     tinged by hysteria   

           where no one can see, or touch, or feel   

                     the infinite coldness   

Waiting   

           surrounded by darkness   

                     like a corpse in the grave   

           clamped down by a vise   

                     whose claws rip and tear   

           forced into submission   

                     until no one’s looking   

           deep down in the well of pitch, and stagnation, and fear   

                     the infinite coldness   

Outside   

           revealed at last in the eyes   

                     through condemnation and indignation   

           recognized by the putrid stench   

                     of pettiness and intolerance   

           exposed in each word and act   

                     through acid hatred   

           an eruption of vomitus bile—black and caustic   

                     the infinite coldness   
   

Copyright 1997 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman