After Math
Quinuclidinyl Benzilate
I can't spell it
but I dream about it.
This dream would
be easier to get through
if
I could wake
or see the sun
but
in the night
there's Mason Lancer
syringe in hand
he lectures
he injects
I drown
Potassium Chloride
Full.
Stop.
White Bed, Light Thoughts
When I come back
from the dead (and that's
what it is, you know, dead)
I think
I don't
I shouldn't
be here and
so aware
of what's come crashing down
of
the lives lost.
I say:
It's not like getting
killed
was part of the original
plan. I
knew it was a risk
but you know, Don,
(no, really you don't)
when you survive Afghanistan
you come back with
your mind
in two extremes.
At the same time you
feel invincible for surviving
you know
that you've been closer to death than
most people will be
before they're old.
Don knows the power of
just listening
and that's what he does.
Just listens.
I spill.
I tell Don
everything.
Everything
except
that the part about the tunnel
and the white light
is true.
That's the kind of secret
I could only
share
with Dwayne.
Don's been shot but
never nearly died and I don't need
his pity or
his sympathy
just
his understanding which
I'm sure
I might get
if he'd talk to me instead
of just listening.
The Darkest Hour Before Dawn
It's not every night
but
enough nights
that I sit up
bowl of cereal
infomercials
sometimes reruns of Angel
and I regret.
Regret is
weighted on both sides.
Like, I regret
that my actions got Dwayne killed
and not being able to come clean to Don earlier
and that I had to lie to so many
God, so many people.
But I don't regret
doing the right thing.
At least
I think I don't.
I might know more after
I figure out what
exactly
is the right thing.
I wonder
if the infomercials can help.
In Re: Things I Could Do Right Now if Don Wasn't Sleeping With Liz
Pick up the phone
Hit #2 on speed dial
Remedy.
Drive to his apartment
Tell him my final secrets
Release.
Explain why I did
what I did
Rebuild.
Show him why I belong to
the FBI, his office, his team.
Reestablish.
Back to the stakeouts
to the running and the rush.
Regain.
In Trust
Don's reliability in the field is
one thing.
His emotional reliability
(he likes to think he hides it
but dude
glass is less transparent)
is
quite another.
Liz
wouldn't understand
because
her idea of trust
(where Don is concerned
anyway)
is a little
different than mine.
For a while
(subway
cell phone
guns
train coming)
I wasn't so sure Don
would be able to
put himself aside
to realize how much it meant
that I could have called
David
Megan
Alan
Charlie
Larry
but
I called him
because I trusted
him.
Don knows being trusted
is greater than
trusting others
and he might remember that
if he
ever forgives me.
If I Had Three Wishes
1. I wish my last words to Dwayne Carter hadn't been "Because I hate owing you."
2. I wish my last words to Dwayne Carter hadn't been "Because I hate owing you."
3. I wish my last words to Dwayne Carter hadn't been "Because I hate owing you."
Idle Minds Do the Devil's Work
I have
the cleanest apartment in LA
perfectly feng-shuied furniture
alphabetized all my books by author
and then again by title
run from here to Cleveland and back on my treadmill
watched three Law & Order marathons
learned to make homemade pasta (thank you, Giada DeLaurentis)
ironed all my shirts
visited every legal porn site on the web
and I
am going absolutely crazy.
I stare
at my cell phone, lonely
on the coffee table.
Maybe the Eppes family
wants homemade pasta for dinner.
Where I'd Go If I Wasn't Basically on House Arrest
Despite my newfound skills
of organization
I miss
the controlled chaos
of
Charlie's office.
I miss his dartboard and
his math toys and
chalk dust
gumballs
papers everywhere
coffee cups
computer cords
scattered books
I could just
sit there
watching him work.
He wouldn't even have
to talk to me
and really
at this point I wouldn't
care if he didn't
want to.
I could just
sit there
and maybe without my talking
Charlie would know
how much I owe him
how Megan told me he
(of all people!)
was the one who put math aside
and said that they
could only know
what was in their hearts.
Their hearts.
Charlie.
I'll be damned.
In the Clear
"You're cleared,"
comes the voice from the phone.
"You can go back,"
he says,
and I think,
no,
I will never be clear,
I can never go back.
But I know
we're talking
about two different things.
Just when I've taken up
the swing of Don's team
the PTBs offer me Washington
and the Medal for Meritorious Conduct
but I'd trade both of those
and hell, even all the stuff from my desk,
for LA.
The Book of David
If looks could kill...
it wouldn't really matter
because I'd be too dead
to see them.
Don told me it
was David
who pulled the needle from my heart
started CPR
realized in that minute
(which might have been
a day)
who I'd been all along
and yet
it's David who
only talks to me when he has to
looks at me
eyes narrowed
mouth tight
never has
a kind word
if he has any words at all
and I know why.
I let David think
he knew all my secrets:
the hell of Afghanistan
the heaven of Idaho's open spaces
and how stakeouts were my idea of purgatory
because
telling him those
truths
made my
lies
easier for him to
believe.
I don't really expect forgiveness
but it seems
that
at the end of all of this I
have only traded one life
debt
for another.
Well, maybe not.
I mean
Dwayne never wanted me
to forget. Maybe
David never wants me
to remember.
Lonesome Tonight
I act like
two years of celibacy
was no big deal.
Duty to the country
and all.
Secretly I think I
deserve
a medal just for that.
On the Night Don Made Me Talk
I find it funny
in that sick sort of ironic way
that Don is the one who's so
eager for sound
as we sit
coffee and silence
gotta love stakeouts.
I had a string of questions ready to go.
"Can I come back?"
"Who would partner me?"
"Is the team ever going to forgive me?"
Of course, I didn't ask the
most important question in my arsenal:
"How can I ever repay you?"
The most important question
doesn't have to have an answer
out loud.
So I jump out of the car,
and trust Don
with my life.
--
end
