5 am Ramblings by Dinamarie Isola I took it all—the regrets, the guilt, the hurts and humiliations— and smashed them into green clay. Pounded, rolled, forced a shape to it, but my clumsy hands haven’t changed. Collapsed into itself, tried again and again. Fresh starts are the theory of relativity when memory, relentless as raging tides, is there to beat my shores until I submit. The undertow alive and well; lulling me in, inviting me to drown. I thought myself a stronger swimmer. I’ve given up on fooling myself. I own the whole heaping mess. Even the parts that no longer wish to have anything to do with me. My rabbit’s heart, frantic pace that outruns me, leaps clean from my chest, takes off for someone worthy of such flight. Fickle youth has changed sides, crept off, never to be heard from after its parting cry, “You took too long! I can’t stay here forever!” Green fingernails; the clay’s clinging stain. My hands, heavy, clench and unclench, but they’ll never know. How to make this into what I want? An open question to a store closing its doors before time to take inventory. I roll that clay until it’s a hard, hard ball. Not original, not interesting. Perhaps useful as a paperweight, doorstop, or murder weapon?
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