You poured salt

Into open wounds

Leaving me to rust

An over ripened honey dew

On concrete

are my dreams to you

Smashing them apart

Until they come unglued

Vulnerable am I to you

I am a new born calf

You are a lion

Feasting

Tearing me to shreds

An unforgivable act

Leaving me black and blue

And every apology

Is déjà vu

For it will happen again

Repeatedly

Until I'm dead

Because you are a resident

Inside my heart

Who refuses to leave

I refuse to evict

After we departed for home, I couldn't help but feel as if I were abandoning the other patient or shall I say "resident"whom I had shared six long months of pure agony and misery with, knowing what we had tried to do to ourselves. As I sank into the back seat of the car among bags of all my favorite foods, a honey dew included, that Mom purchased to ease me back into the familiarity of home, I thought about the doctor saying that one reconstructive surgery would repair the nerve damage and shallow hole in my face, but I felt no operation could repair the unforgivable act of a self-inflicted gunshot to your own head.

"A deep sadness had over taken me"; that's what I told the psychiatrist. The sadness had been roaring in my mind like a lion so much so that I took my uncle's antiquated Smith and Wesson with a tinge of rust on the front sight and held it unsteadily to my head. I really didn't want to kill myself; I just wanted the sadness to end.

We finally arrived home, and my Mom closed the garage as she parked the car. I opened the rear car door and grabbed my bags to enter the house. As I entered the kitchen, a familiar sadness flooded my mind, and I had a deja vu moment that suggested, home is not a place to which you can alway return.

You performed a surgery on me

Using a rusty knife

And though I roared like a lion

No one ever heard me

Or perhaps they just ignored

And moved on

After all,

Their lives are filled with

Honey dew

So why would they bother

With an unforgivable soul

Such as mine?

Déjà vu is what I feel but

Wouldn't it be great

To move on from this?

There she stood; rather sat , in the grass at the base of the Mountain. Still straddling the old iron rails that held for so long, years since operation are obvious, and broad stripes of rust traverse her round-black face. Something tugs, and something pulls; a longing to move, a longing to breathe again. A deep seeded need to feel the fire burning, get the gears grinding and the wheels turning. Oh she waits too long, still expecting the fireman to bring the coal; she stays her post waiting for the next day of work that will never come. She's waiting for that honeydew morning , when she once again can roar through the hills. The lion of the mountain silenced into an aging lamb, for time is unforgiving. I sense a déjà vu, like I've been here before. Longing to move, longing to scream, hiss, whistle, buckle, crank, and turn. All I can do is stare , until the sun sets and it is time to go. As I enter my car to drive back to the city, I look back at my new friend. Now standing tall, a proud monument of times long past. The days come and go, the cars along the road come and go, the visitors to the railroad come and go, but here she stays, the permanent resident.