The Rape of Quasimodo

The hunchback sits up in the bell tower ignorant and free

Waiting for the sunrise of her sweetness, not the tide of his enemy

Coming in with mutiny and damage on the stack

Foolish in the foundry of why she was coming back

And out come her words like wolves from the den

Slumped over in our living room hearing it all come to its end

Scattered emotional ball bearings rolling across the hard wood flooring

Like sprung traps of dizzy days peppered in consequence exploding

Some idle, some futile, some bitter, and others like the rape of my soul

Hating myself for this oblivion, this wretched coring burrowed into my being

Like a plunger of nothingness spiraling in pumping its pistons and extracting

Everything I have ever hoped for or had faith in out in droplets of deceit

Decorating the oak boards like an indoor rain storm weather pattern beyond my choice

Playing poke-a-dots with the normally placid surface servicing as temporary landing

Space for miniature menageries, doctor kits, coloring contests and daddy back rides

But tonight is an exorcism of trust for the high priestess in high heels

To utter chants in as few syllables as possible to segregate any last molecule of concern

From her body and let it cascade down onto the floor boards to intermix and hide out

In the crowd of waste matter left of me waiting to be squished like grapes

Between her toes as she dashes for her escape in minutes to come

And chaos and confusion battle it out for supremacy

Like trying to herd in renegade sheep back to the fences

As she keeps pulling out her chainsaw to shred gaps in the gates

The moon just keeps on rising knowing how many will be missing in the morning

Searching inside my recollections for a silhouette of her to frame upon my memory

As if she ever was that person making vows for better or worse all the days of her life

As if she ever was on that green sofa or

Two steps from the curb in front the Notre Dame accepting a proposal

As if going in and praying God could see this day and could not warn me

As if taking sides is beyond the boundaries of labels

As if rape victims were really asking for it

As if promises are a function of depleted convenience

If she could make me as empty inside as her sense of responsibility

The vapid expanse between us could consume the truths of

This old life like a black hole immense in gravity and

No one would ever have to speak of them again,

But memories are like roots shooting up through the soil and out through these

Hard wood floors like canopies in a living room searching for sunlight

Like a blood hound oak expanding creating its own understory in time

That in retrospect we all can see the what, the how, the why

Maybe in time confide an explanation, a ribbon of truth like a belated band aid

On the red swell knowing I have been spoiled for the reality of what love should be

That the memory of my rapist haunts my private times like a sadistic intruder

Hovering to remind me of my worthlessness that

I had poured my everything into the fruition of an us and

Her dreams were like quests of testaments to our inverted priority lists that

I yearned to map out into golden years

And all her other plans stored in her parent’s basement mock me

Like a high school prank to elect the nerd home coming king

And Quasimodo always knew Esmeralda was only visiting, but a boy could dream

And I hold the lambs like infant lions struggling to make it to the morning

And one day she won’t be the she that sets the sunrise in my eyes

The bell tower will ring, the congregation will exit, and a man will stand up straight