Out by the Shed
Published in Impspired Literary Magazine
​poetry

Out by the shed I burn
a year and half of mandatory
chemically induced menopause.
I'm a bonfire of release
crackling with a decade of 
abundant off label overprescribing of

fentanyl patches and each new pain  on the
market. My hair is covered in pieces of
my Defiance and Non-Compliance
when I had the nerve to tell you 
that getting pregnant again was no cure
for stage 4 Endo, for someone heavily

medicated and in pain and with two small kids.
The ashes of your fire of authority
are sucked straight up into the moon
a swirling snowstorm of
involuntary therapies.
You used to line up the objects

on your desk over and over
thinking you were the source of the light
and heat and order but now I don't need to stand
by the flames of your misguided treatments
and your habits of disbelief. 
I stomp on the parts of you still moving

then I cremate you
and you drift over West Woods
your ashes silhouetted against
Sirius and the rings of Saturn singing. 
I hid things in the dark
and yielded to excruciating pain out of deep love

and self-imposed expectations that because
I could tolerate anything I should.
The blaze of you coats my mouth.
You diagnosed me into pieces 
that took forever to collect. Now,
I'm a Firestarter.