William E. Mayer Winner for February 2012

she wrote me one last letter

by jim greenwald

and left my  heart in pieces…like broken glass, pierced by a
multitude of shards from the fall of her words
no apologies offered…after all, 
it was no accident that left me broken

hard for me to believe you could hate
so silently, storing your acrimony for countless time
spewing it out from on high…letting
vindictiveness vibrate, oscillate, cascade until I shattered

no one was there to catch me…to save me
I lay here scrutinizing your
words on the pieces of my shattered mind
trying to fit them together….
searching for meaning among the shards

my screams torturous, full of the desolation of failure
memories tormenting me, of once upon
a time, drowned in a vortex of revulsion
 it happened so fast….just as I arrived in Afghanistan