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The Lie

I am an insect waiting to be squashed!

I stare hard at the ground
as if fascinated, enthralled by it
while, above, eyes of cold-cobalt  
wait to gouge and burrow out 
any self-belief that might still remain. 
 
“WELL?”
It always starts with that unsettling word.
Ironic as ‘well’ it certainly is not.
“COME ON!! I haven’t got all day!”
The next sharpened remark; his checkmate,
and the denouement usual swiftly follows.

I try to speak but my weighted words 
require a wheelbarrow to carry them out.
I am snagged, on the jag, of repeated criticism
which over the years has shrunken me;
diluting my beleaguered confidence.

Most of my childhood years I understood
and welcomed the fluctuations of emotion
however the grammar and punctuation
of every day skirmishes of family life:
the questions marks, the exclamations, the..... ellipses
were rules, restrictions that became impossible to follow.
So here, once again, stands my father’s temper 
attempting to confront nay dominate me.

At this point, if my body had consented,
I would have galloped over the nearest horizon
however all my moving parts had gathered together,
loitering, on a corner, spreading rumours and gossip 
that had rendered me rigid and immobile!

My only escape, my bolt for freedom, lies… in the lie.
Yes, an untruth, that had lain in the top shelf
of my mind for many troubled days, 
fermenting in its own insidious juices.
Now sliding treacherously from the corner of my mouth,
this worded assassin, homes ruthlessly on its target
…my firework of a father.

Suddenly his face tightens, a thought frightens, 
his rigid body a jolt of electricity,
as disbelief snakes its way into his thinking.
His anger reddens, his reasoning darkens
and his fists…..boulder.

But the lie has lain down beside him
fabricating disappointment, bewilderment, distrust  
deep into the windows of his eyes.. then...much deeper.
 
Gradually I turn the key in the ignition of my pride
carefully closing my hands, knitting my fingers,
creating a statement of both prayer and defiance.

Later a thought dangles in a corner of my mind, 
a consideration, a contemplation of how far the lie
will layer down into my father’s subconscious
before he understands that the lie is a…
Trojan horse carrying … the truth!

Ian Souter
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