Keyed Off

You thought you owned me,
had my heart to play with like a mouse
controlled my thoughts
with a brush of your hand on my cheek,
kept me locked away in a dungeon
of regret and shallow darkened days.

But you were wrong,
I always had the key,
could escape whenever I was ready
to break your ghost in two,
scatter your whims to dust,
butcher the last of your pleasures.

Yesterday was that day
when a Vee of honkers flew silhouetted
across the rising yellowed sun
as a tenor mockingbird sang Cohen’s Hallelujah
to a litter of rabbits freed from their nest.

I watched you melt in heat of my disdain
until your vagaries were nothing more
than a puddle of vain oaths that
the heat of day would suck into clouds
leaving nothing but a stain
and tasteless memories,
which I would lock away
in an underground vault
and toss away the key.