The Consequence Was...

Withdrawal

She called everyday to cheer me up.
Said I'd become dust
if I didn't step out of the house,
didn't meet people.
I'd become a yak-tail fly whisk -
different, but useful only to drive away flies.
As boring as a whale bone.
As dull as a lesson in syntax.
She went on in quaint humor.

She said she'd make me a palanquin
if that was what it took for me
to go out and mingle,
to leave the cage, the social apoplexy.

A woman needs wiles, her voice carried on,
Needs to be pagan - like a flagon of rum.
Needs to be gracefully rapacious like the rainbow
that wants both ends of the skies.

After I'd put down the receiver,
I concurred silently,
I gazed at the sagebrush plains outside my window.
Realized, that life didn't, couldn't grow back without roots.
Good air and sunshine were just not enough
to go out there and socialize.
I was the consequence of rejections.
My roofs were adrift, the sap in my veins all gone.
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