I lost myself in the moment and found myself for a lifetime

Until

Linda Belans 2018

 

This time

I wasn’t cornered

this time

he was calling to me

from the second-floor

bedroom window

a lone balding man

with grinning face

 

suspended

 

framed by stiff curtains

backed by thick dark void

 

Memory divides

then

from              Now

 

There is no evidence

no corroborating story

no witness

just him

and me

 

But this time

I wasn’t trapped

alone

in a house

with him

like all the other times

this time

I am standing

at street level

under the window

the bedroom

he shares with his wife

my aunt

in a house

they live in with

their two children

 

I don’t know where they were

on this particular late summer afternoon

but I knew where he was

 

I always knew where he was.

 

This time

I am standing

on a high mound of dirt

molded

from the construction site

in the newly forming neighborhood 

this time

I said

 

                            No

 

And I climbed down off the rise

and walked away

 

or was it ran?

 

That was

the last time

and

first time

everything changed.