Deadly Corridors

Linda M. Crate

all the corridors
hold secrets
of criminals and saints
blessings and damning words,
and all my heavy tears
construed in the dark where i thought
no one would listen;
but the corridors are wicked little
eavesdroppers
ready to drop you like autumn does her
leaves but only more harshly
if someone pauses
at their opening to hear all your heart
poured into the night like a dying
star
falling heavily to the ground losing all
it's heavenly gauze—
they all stare with their judging eyes
whispering things about me
behind their hands
of how a young woman like me shouldn't be
crying so hard and how shallow they
must be to think the young
can't weather scars,
and heartache has been no stranger to me
i've been seared in pain but i still
stand no matter how many
tears fall;
all these corridors with their listening ears
don't know my journey and i hate them
for all their judgment and the way they follow
me around
always listening,
waiting for the moment they can weigh me
down to the ground like a ball and chain so everyone
can see my fall like an angry crescendo dying
into the basement where the spiders
would cross over my locks with whispers of webs
to catch all my tears the corridors remembered
and all the new ones that would fall;
i want to destroy these corridors
just wander in the snow and sky and sun
let the river sing me to sleep
where no spider cannot touch me without certain death.