Ripple Effect

Ripple Effect

Sheets of silence
pulled over your head.
Shutting out
the driving rain outside,
the light and me.

Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse,
Deadwood, and The Devil's Tower.
I changed a flat tire
in a thunderstorm.
You think we should drive on.
I think it too late to get home tonight.

I bounce a check for
a cramped hotel room,
which you blame
on my fear of carrying credit cards,
and stupidity.
Did you want to sleep in the car?
"Better than sleeping
in this bed with you."

What decision to make
when everything
has been wrong thus far?
Every choice
a ripple effect,
like the rain
made in the puddles
I crouched among
to change a flat tire.
Words and too many emotions came.
Now I want to talk
and make things right.

You pulled
the thin hotel room
blanket over your head,
while I looked at
a rainy parking lot
lit with orange lamps
and jagged lightning.

You shut out
the world you can see.
Shut out my mistakes.
Shut out me.