I walk past these run down bricks
routine sketches
harbored snatches
from a time before now
it tenses me still
that scold in your voice
it was meant for me
when no one was around
though dead ten years
you still live today
in this place I hated
and in the eyes of gossip
as a careful cleansing
seems never enough
day after day I repeat
to turn fear into blossoms
the same broken driveway
and the bruised tree
waiting for the sun again
to fill my mind with ease
for one day I will win
and I will smile at the bushes
for I will have become new
without you haunting me
and I will surface that day
free of the shame
exhaling all of you
into the dry rotted mailbox
to know that I could pass by
from that day forward
sporting a heart with new keys
and a mind with better locks