I Do Not Refer to Ancient Tales

 

I Do Not Refer to Ancient Tales

Can I please speak the words you fear to hear?
May I please tell the stories that make my veneer thinner still?
I do not refer to ancient tales so old there is no trace of them.
I do not spin a yarn with the motives and suspects disguised.

If you gave me time to unwind it all,
you would soon discover my uncovered plotlines
carry on to this day and the next
from midnight to purple midnight again.

I am not innocent, though I try to hide myself well.
I veil my passions behind philanthropy and my
lusts behind synonyms for love and friends.
Be that as it may, once you find yourself entranced by my tales
you will discover the dirt dug up in the middle of the forest
was my dirt with my shoe prints all over it.

Some I will say are just my dreams and are empty of all meaning.
Some you will see are more than dreams and send your thoughts
careening
down avenues that lead you to the slums where
my darkest stories begin. What you will not know until the
stories end
is all my stories never leave their home of origin.

To say that this frightens some is evident,
but it is too small a word. For it frightened me from birth
to teen to husband to parent and onward. To some I have confessed,
others made a lucky guess, others heard my story from someone
else’s mouth how I transgressed with full phone numbers and
addresses. And though they happened long ago,
and though the storyline travels through the middle of me,
I will not deny someone else’s fable. Why discard their
ability to move my plot along? Their draft might be
much better than my own.