Derailed

[I've written even more to post for you. But everything in moderation...]

my mind is in one million places
divided by your words
hurtling towards me - through me -
from all directions.
bits of surrounding conversations
derail trains of thought
without my permission.
I am painfully
unflinchingly aware
of my weaknesses,
my inability to battle
sanity's erosion
like water through a cliff's cracks.
or similarly,
the photos radiating sunny dispositions
from ill-fated good old days
discovered in the midst of a marriage's
final hours.
the season's first snowfall,
a European vacation,
our late daughter's last birthday.
though toted here for safe-keeping,
I release them to the storm drain,
flinching in pain
as I remember your words
spoken with more clarity, precision
and spite
than I could even begin to muster
here
amidst a train station's bustle.
"I told you," you say.
"Trying to heal only hurt us more."
"But where will you go?" I exclaim.
then nothing, before:
"Be well, Clara. Look ahead
and try to forget me."
I pull myself back to now,
having learned to suppress.
looking ahead, I wonder if my train is approaching
but silently hope
among so many spoken hopes
that the tracks are getting longer
and instead pushing my future farther away from me.
I invite the enveloping chaos
reluctantly
desperately
granting permission to its whining,
shouting,
laughing.
I grant tearful permission
to separate my sanity from itself.
for it is irreparable and
like my soul,
left behind
as my body boards the train.