Home Is Where the Hurt Is

Two painful poems

Image by Khoa Võ

This Injunction, a Gun - J. Kayla

Home has become a battleground,
He does not belong there.
He should leave.
I have earned this injunction.

Heavy with consequences, loaded lead,
should be able to push barrel to head.
Shaking wrists, paused grip,
No matter what he has done.
Braver fingers would pull the trigger.
The cops would come.

Is it weak resolve, or just my soul?
Is there any left?
This imaginary love fills a fake heart
still pumping what feels like real blood.

Make-believe, I know…
Except for the kids who don’t.
To protect them from
the image of Dad in handcuffs and sirens—
I endure stand-offs and buy-ins.

The price of playing is to
ante up the remains
of my soul, left tattered,
long ago broken and battered
by him or maybe me?

Regardless, isn’t my spirit
something I should get to keep?
There are no angels, no victims,
save for the children.
But he—
he’s determined to play the villain.
So why not let him?
Why then, can’t I slay him?

I cannot rightly play the lion or the lamb,
I do not feel I deserve this upper hand.
The cards may be stained
with guilt and torn by shame,
but I do hold the hand,
all the same.
Why, then, can’t I play it?

Oh, he bluffs so well
when he lays down his cards.
Another deal can be made if I dare choose—
Everybody can win,
and we equally will lose
if I dare to believe this is finally
the end of the abuse.

How I almost believe lies I hear.
Are his choices finally clear?
He says he will wise up,
go to work, find a place to live.

Amicable divorce
is a sugary dream
I want so badly to believe.

But this gun is heavy,
and it may
be long past time
to put it to use.

Leave it to the lawyers
to light the fuse.

~J. Kayla

© J. Kayla 2025

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Image by Мария Бряндина.

Daughter Sacrificial - Edward Swafford

Repenting for her servile sinning SMITE
A figment dressed in mother’s vestments
Vacillation vex, frenzied fists
Is she family or foe?
Faux familial ties bind with vagary bonds
Bound by blood, not in this household
Notwithstanding temporality, morality,
Merely
B
_R
__U
___T
____A
_____L
______I
_______T
________Y
Beauty betrays her portent taciturn lulled
Lullaby lies portraying playthings
Of miser make-believe mother/daughter
Role models roleplaying
A modus operandi, bullish and miasmic
What did she do to deserve this?
Postpartum tenebrific trammel, truth in
Translucency
P
_S
__Y
___C
____H
_____O
______M
_______A
________N
_________C
__________Y
So, she sees the seering searing stare in
Mother’s misshapen eyes
Maddening milieu, doorway to lonely
Pathfinding daughter longing in limpid
Volition for her lost womb
Her nurturing touch
Receded with every ceded confessional
Penitent penance
M
_A
__L
___E
____V
_____O
______L
_______E
________N
_________C
__________Y
Wrongs and rites ringing “you are NO”
Daughter of mine, child of thine, mother
Of acidic apparitions
Spectral seminal sycophant
No séance can rid ghosts of memories
Past in parts of sepulchral pain, passed
DOWN by her prescient parent with a
Pyrrhic plan
I
_N
__S
___U
____L
_____A
______R
_______I
________T
_________Y
Ostracized and cannibalized by hatred
Feeding from pariah bowls without
One. livid. lick.
Of magnanimous maternal desire
A daughter’s devotion, lost and little
Lamb
Lambent dreams of fresh-faced kin
Healing progeny an anamnesis antidote

Not with her scars.
Not in this lifetime.

© Edward Swafford 2025