SCREAM

By Ruth Hutton

When I scream out, the sound vibrates back into the past and I am eighteen again.

Lost.

A mother for only a few weeks.

Annihilating myself that summer long ago, because I hated my soul.

It was a boy. It was a boy. HE WAS A BOY.

When I was forty, a psychic confirmed this and I wanted to scream out -  I know, I know!

Sometimes, on a quiet dawn walk, I stop and think of him.

But then I think of myself. The terrified self that was still a child.

And then I hear the chirping of the birds and I feel the fir trees’ branches hushing and soothing me in the early wind.

My scream remains back in time.

My scream is replaced now by whispered love words.

I was a child.

I forgive myself.

I am sorry, my boy. It wasn’t your time. I wasn’t ready.

The mossy path, the startled deer on the lane, confirms this.

#darkpoetsclub