I have it under control, or so it seems. I am certainly not afraid of me anymore. Began the transformation in my 40s, and now that I’m in my 60s…

I used to live in my head and go to a dark place where I would plan what I would do if such-and-such happened. Such-and-such rarely if ever happened.

I know what humans are capable of, and I know what I am capable of, and it is just best to be prepared.

I have learned to stay in the moments and watch and stay quiet. This is what they fear…

I had to Get Away.

I could feel it rising.

When I’m off; I’m off. This shit is real. What I do, I do for you. Not me. I’d love to tell you what I really think. It just wouldn’t do anyone any good… It might do me some good. However, I doubt anyone else will benefit from the experience.

So I Get Away.

Dennis Mantin

Piano rose above the frost line.

Sweet music cold and still.

She held that note and damn the cost.

I just had to get my fill.

My attention was the darkness

Gold light did touch her face.

I’m so attracted to your beauty, dear.

My mind is in that race.

Now, I hunger for the quiet.

And how that used to be.

Before the beauty and the music.

Before this madness that I see.

There were gifts & expectations.

There were smiling, all aglow.

We had installed our hesitations.

From the well of need know.

Mom said, “You never look a gift horse.”

She just knew who she could trust.

They nodded yes, “Of course, of course.”

From the thicker upper crust.

I just couldn’t get the patter.

I just had to be that kind.

And in the end, it doesn’t matter.

The gifts are sometimes there to find.

The bad luck raised suspicions, on a path that was beat down.

No one dared to look within or see the wise men in the town.

It was happening for eons, as long as Grandad could recall.

Like a dark foreboding plank walk or a dream in which you fall.

Until the child spoke her words that, “Maybe somethings wrong with me?”

So we made a meeting with the Doc, down at the Family Psychiatry.

The doctor raised awareness and we all took a look.

Things are looking so good now, might take Grandma off the hook.

Now life is far from perfect however the family’s not so sad.

Looking in the mirror, not blaming blind luck, good or bad.

I hear the screams in the distant dark and my mind paints pictures for just milliseconds of assault and horror not to the drunken frivolity it is AND then I get back to reality of where I am being a single parent separated in a world of responsibility and comforts like Epson salt baths and butter chicken dinners and it makes me kind of wonder what in the name of the baby Jesus did I find so appealing about that world of screaming and drunken debauchery that now makes me recoil like a demon from holy water and there it is in a nutshell I have my answer I mean how else was I going to become a father??

She has tattoos of the moon and stars.

And a black Tabby long-haired coon.

She liked it rough in the back of cars.

With a boy, that was her ruin.

She lost her mind to disarray.

In a cocktail of her choice.

She listens. She don’t speak or say.

Many words in her own voice.

They broke her and her beauty.

To age, time, decay, decline.

It’s not true. I have this duty.

She was once a friend of mine.

She said she was a mother, but not much of a daughter.

Said, “You reap now what you sow.” Which landed like cold water.

I don’t believe in luck or the curse she said I brought her.

But to say that looks could kill. I was the lamb they brought to the slaughter.

I asked, “You don’t like men?” There was so much I could have taught her.

She was past the learning stage except from scars of those who fought her.

Baby took a deep dive, I wasn’t there, I could have caught her.

No crying over.spilt milk. Or whatever it was that got her.

The story is of dark and light.

Like night stars fade at dawn.

All are judging wrong from right.

The sun shines bright and then gone.

We run around, and then we sleep.

A mystery in those dreams.

And in that circle, where we keep.

A story not as real as it seems.