Traffic Light

Two single beds two feet apart
Two children bounding around
Bunctious before bed
Two tired married adults
Wife and husband
One thousand miles apart
Words shouting
Emotional bunkers
Landing verbose artillery
In those places where it peels
The dried blood right back off
In between
Get your clothes off
Don’t jump on the bed
Did you use potty

Traffic in this room is more than four people
Green kids clothes on the floor
Green kids blankets off the bed
It’s the words
Emotions embodied
In exhausted articulation
It’s the congestion
Of disagreements

Of stern yells
Of knotted yellow satin strings
Knotted
Around our box
Each undoing attempt
Tightening this bow
Then the inevitable fender bender
When the highway runs stop and go
My lack of literacy of your word darts
Left me cautiously googling
Gaslighting
Moonlighting

So much enlightening
Dark recesses of my pain’s crevice
In danger as I climb
Toward your anger’s red light

We’ll turn off the light
When little heads lay
We’ll come back together
In a different dark room
To recover
To retreat
To relax the attacks
Pull up the covers
Our bunker
Hide together
From tomorrow’s light