what does coming clean do besides out your ***** laundry?

I used to love to count the rings on your fingers
Each came with a story and stayed on your fingers through it all
Your engagement ring was my favorite, star colored band and a diamond so glistening the angels were jealous
Sometimes if I close my eyes and imagine hard enough I can remember your smile reflecting off the pool of diamond
The day the ring left your finger even the angels cried out in pain
The ring ceased to be surrounded by the magic it used to
The band turned to a dull silver and the diamond lost its shine
The ring I used to believe was more beautiful than life itself no longer shines

Oh emotions that bind my tongue please remove the ties that hinder me. Oh blinding sorrow that grieves my soul, steady my pen that I may give life to my words. Oh imagery that transcends understanding as you flow from the river of ideas that I immerse myself in, give me back my what was taken from me, open the door to creativity. Oh prose please set me free.

Home is clean sheets on Tuesdays.
Piles of poetry defy gravity, over-sized
soft  t-shirts in the closet and always
enough Diet Coke in the fridge.

Home is the cat muttering about nothing.
Lists for Doctors, for Target, for God.
Popcorn for dinner, music instead of  news.
Windows open in January for different air.

Home is breakfast, then leaving for meetings
or other hard things, then I come back, back, back.
No matter what the day brings, this is how
I get to next Tuesday again, again, again.

He stays, I push, a game of give and take,
This love tests his every instinct
To run from trouble,
Yet he stays

Standing tall, my insecurities and anxieties fear him
He loves me through it all
And I try explain to him how much it means,
But how can I find the right words to thank
The only one who didn't fear this side of me