Sliding through the sewage tunnel gleam

(poem in seven parts)

 

 

I

 

Forgotten (soon)

 

 

Hard and cold as an ice storm

killing, hardening life

in its blanket frost.

 

The only love you keep is what

you can control. If you can’t control it,

you ditch it with a kick,

with a higher-than-though mighty sneer.

 

Digger in the rocky lifeless garden,

resisting you, you claim as savage stupidity

because you claim to hold prophecy,

ancient words of a babbled dream,

zodiac tamer whipping up a storm

or a healing balm to break delusion.

 

When there is no compliance or

cheerleaders cheering,

you turn,

start character-flailing, lying, slicing into

the corners of human frailty

to etch yourself out a victory and walk away.

 

Atrophied heart inside you, a high ceiling

that will go no further, cannot expand

into compassion-for-your-enemies

overflow

 

Dive back into the water-pool where all who

encounter you are obedient to your command, move

to the mountain where uncertainty cannot

reach you – exchanging truths in monetary form

and claim it all as blessed achievement.

 

Where was your kindness, your golden glow,

when you drove a knife into my loins

before you departed,

trying to lure me into self-loathing?

Low,

like arrogance, hubris, and lying are low,

immutable as a dead thing swinging in

the wind – movement, but no breath.

 

Farewell friend of the seventh solider, fallen.

I need nothing here

in your palace of falsities,

closed off from humility and the equality of grace.

 

You could have left without letting me know

you never had my back, that you were always

back there, clawing with judgements,

grievances.

You could have just left without the

tongue-lashing psychological deception,

just turned away without the gutting,

flipping all those years of friendship

on their side, upside down, lying

like liars do with complete certainty,

no remorse or self-doubt,

amputating any devotion

I had left for you,

boiling its remains

on a rack of putrid oil and extremes.

 

Walk away, dragging this downed horse behind you,

into the thorny bramble of your defiant prejudice

into the fantasy of your less-than-holy paradigm, broken.

 

 

 

II

 

 

Broken Glass

 

 

Coward,

keeper of a false fixed star,

keeper of many truths,

knower of none.

 

Coward,

throwing glass into my garden.

Brutal, unnecessary cruelty so you can

own the platform as you leave,

nose stuck high in the air,

hands cleansed of any doubt or wrongdoing.

 

Coward,

incapable of walking through the mire

hand in hand, of not letting go and trusting love no matter

the centipedes writhing, the small gnawing things

and the larger creatures that scare. Incapable

of owning your own transgressions, or prioritizing

love above your frightened soul.

 

Coward

cussing a friendship because you quit,

cussing and lying and tossing the broken glass

from your high and mighty mountain.

 

Coward

with blood on your hands,

who must turn back as you leave,

thinking you’ll say your piece,

but really just recklessly, heartlessly tossing

broken glass.

 

 

 

III

 

 

Getting there

 

 

       I am almost on the other side

(one day, second day)

where forgiveness collides

with terrible truth,

where pain is overcome with pity,

releasing my shield and cry

for human justice.

       Quickly through the process

after the breaking of the sun,

after seeing the secrets you stand behind

to prop up your persona, after still,

your deliberate hurt was hurled, and after that,

ending it with pat-on-the-head platitudes,

even still, I forgive you.

       I am almost there, I pray to be there, in spite of

your attempts to drown me in false accusations,

in spite of your attempts to undermine my autonomy.

I say, so be it, I am almost on the other side,

sensing a freedom, an inspiration

clearing the thicket of your malice,

almost healed of your viper-tongue lick,

your sticky twisted back-flip truths,

spiritual elitism of the highest order.

       I am almost there, and I am feeling good,

relieved, now away from your succubus suckling,

away from your tight-grip surrealism,

distorting clean lines, bright glowing rivers

and intimacy.

       I forgive you. I forgive your incapacity,

your hard didactic tongue.

I forgive your small circle land, retreat

from a faith that holds faith no matter the outcome,

that part is easy.

       But your foul lying insults

as you turned away, are harder to bear.

I will get there,

I will not carry you with me –

not your soiled diaper dripping, not a single

attempt to condemn me,

or the labels you blew towards me,

blew, night wind cursing, blew

into nothingness.

 

 

 

IV

 

 

A Dead Man’s Pockets

 

 

Petty, trust snapped

a killed bug on a windshield.

Into the grave, folding, four-fold,

soot in the ears, on your eyelids,

and your poison almost run through.

 

You lost me long ago, your spell thinned out,

held no power or impact long ago but I thought

love existed between us still, thought

respect existed between us,

that we were more than a bowing down

to your sure-fire claims.

On my side it did.

I cared for you, wanted your dreams

to glow and be more than you ever imagined,

when all you wanted from me was

obedience to your cause.

As long as I kept my place,

just below your shoulder blades,

we would be fine.

 

Why can’t you love?

Why the subterfuge madness

parading around as absolutism?

Why couldn’t you acknowledge

my side, apologize for your

terrible accusations, bend a little,

suck in your puffed-up ego a little,

make room for someone other

than you, your way,

your branding rod?

 

There are more birds in the sky

than there has ever been,

more spark in my fountain than

I have felt for awhile.

 

Clarity is shameless,

a stream that rides, collides

with the rusty metal haul,

goes around it until it becomes one

with the waterfall, a cleansing continuum.

 

 

 

V

 

 

Touch

 

 

The first touch was bitter,

tantamount to an attack, deception

from a vantage point

of spiritual superiority.

 

The second touch

was touching a tomb, still full of stench

though the flesh had rotted long ago –

just dry bones, barely

a full form.

 

The third touch

angered, like when a snake

snatches a fledgling, angry

at the innate brutality all around.

 

The fourth touch

was perfect, a release

from the swing-seat of darkness,

a blessed gift that came

at the first touch –

consciously cruel, compliant

to the sway of a lesser self.

 

 

 

VI

 

 

Small Moon

 

 

A small moon melted

fleshed out a sure-footed sacrifice

but changed directions, too quickly

into the direction of a red star.

Then her heart was burned, crispy

and crumbling, no more a perfect circle,

drooping on one side, gravity became queen

of her false crescendo song.

 

Hiding her deformity in the dark red burn,

hoping no one could see her misshapened side,

which she tended to only in hidden rooms,

chanting for a cure, bandaging her bloodied side

to try and form again that perfect circle.

 

A small moon strained to keep her crust,

could not resist flinging curses from her

cavity craters as she went out, could not accept

her time had come, that in the end she never had

a compact core or a solid truth she could rely on.

 

 

 

VII

 

 

Ribbon

 

 

It is ok to still love you

though our personal love has been

caught by the fishing net,

drowned in the struggle.

It is ok to want you to be ok

and even thriving on a splendid mount,

trailing through the forest.

 

Though your axe came down

in a forced entanglement of muscle

and sinew, although you have failed me

and hurled enmity into my spine,

in a sharp take-me-down twist

that wanted to leave me maimed,

it is ok.

 

I am ok and I still love you,

not for what we were but

for who you are, now,

a person trying to

seize for yourself a homeland,

believing you are doing the right thing,

believing your betrayal was a necessary closure.

 

Closed now and I am ok

and I still love you

over here where we will never meet

in this life or any life again.

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Copyright © by Allison Grayhurst 2025

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Synchronized Chaos” October 2025

https://synchchaos.com/synchronized-chaos-october-2025-tba/

https://synchchaos.com/poetry-from-alison-grayhurst/

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You can listen to the poem below:

https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Sliding-through-the-sewage-tunnel-gleam-part-1.m4a?_=2 https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Sliding-through-the-sewage-tunnel-gleam-part-2.m4a?_=3 https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Sliding-through-the-sewage-tunnel-gleam-part-3.m4a?_=4 https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Sliding-through-the-sewage-tunnel-gleam-part-4.m4a?_=5 https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Sliding-through-the-sewage-tunnel-gleam-part-5.m4a?_=6 https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Sliding-through-the-sewage-tunnel-gleam-part-6.m4a?_=7 https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Sliding-through-the-sewage-tunnel-gleam-part-7.m4a?_=8

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