It ended in the shed

down in the woods

where daddy keeps his tools.

 

Mama was crying.

I saw her through the window.

Her face wet with tortured tears.

 

She twisted the ring off her finger,

hurling it at daddy’s face.

His eye caught the cold gold band.

 

He bled a single tear,

and it trickled down his white shirt,

making a thin line towards the front of his jeans.

 

She stopped crying,

watching as the red line pointed

at his crotch like an accusatory finger.

 

The havoc inside her burst

with the violence of a thunder storm.

Throwing her head back and shrieking

until her love for him spilled forth

and seeped into the hard, dirt floor.

 

He shook his head,

tears and blood staining his shirt.

It was nothing, he pleaded.

So soft I could barely hear the words.

It was nothing.

 

He reached out for her,

a drowning man in a sea of guilt.

 

She looked past him

with a blank stare

and a hollow heart

and left him there

in the shed

with all the other tools.

 

*I will soon be selling the vintage tools pictured above. Please check my About Page for my ebay store link.