It was not wise of you

to drown me in your whys

to keep asking me

to share painful memories

 

Why did you want to know

Why I had no use for educated fools?

Why I didn’t want you to be one?

Why I beat my last husband?

Why I thought his ghost would haunt me?

Why I don’t remember leaving you?

 

Forget the past

the tears and fears

the joys stolen

the voice taken

the choices few

 

Don’t dredge up

poverty’s pain

dreams deferred

 

Even before I crossed to this side

I drank deeply from the River Lethe —

Killing all those memories

Of love and loss and living

 

Remember me in those moments

where I would feign happiness

let me breathe color into my empty life

with a semblance of some meaning.