Other People's Lives

[“Your mistake is you tell the king what he can do rather than what he should do.”
- Sir Thomas Moore to Cromwell, A Man For All Seasons]

They come to me with all their sordid episodes
spilling them out on my desk
like tax receipts to an accountant
and look to me expectantly to fix it for them.

So I sort it out: toss out the red herrings
until I get to the painful matters
that have them avoiding eye contact
questioning their improbable explanations.

Soon they see that I have the nub of it,
uncovered the shallow graves into which
their crimes against marriage
have been swept from their own sight so long
they had half convinced themselves
these sins had never seen reality.

The only things that keep them there are two:
I'd already done the same analysis
about their god-forsaken slime ball mate, and
they've told me too much to jump and run.

So I counsel them.

They hear what they want for awhile:
like, This issue can be dealt with in one way
while That problem must be met head on
and we must avoid opening the door to This Other matter.

But I've lulled them into a sense of false conspiracy,
fellow travelers on their perdition bound highway;
Then I strike:
show them the higher ground
challenge them to steep ascent
to not just gain the advantage
but to become better than they are,
stronger, independent of controllers.

That's when they squirm, look around the room
think, "how did my parents get here before me?"
They feel the heat of their dystopian lives
and they must choose
to stay in the frying pan
or jump, enduring slow incineration
on coals they fired beneath their lives.

I watch.

I await the point they have made up their minds
but have not determined what next to do.
If I see they accept the challenge
we begin formulating plans -
decide what needs to be done next.

That's so rare it is more aspiration than experience.
Much more often, almost always,
they must be let off the hook
lest they swallow it and tear open
the guts of their lives.

So we talk, we choose the lesser ways
to get them back to the point
they first got into this mess
in the mistaken belief that this time
they'll do it right.

I know better, these souls are repeat business;
they enter new relationships same as the old
like a soul transmigrating to the same fateful life
drawn by unfinished business of personal loss.