Heaven
By Shontay Luna
Heaven could’ve been here,
if he only acted right.
But common sense got gone,
and took itself out of sight.
He told me that I ‘destroyed’ us,
that June night when I left.
Bypassing his infidelity,
as if it wasn’t dire theft.
In this moment, I’ll take a breath.
Because realizing took me a good minute.
To look at the fabricated union,
and see all that wasn’t in it.
Counting tears like nickels and dimes,
that morphed into oceans of dark bedtimes.
The pillow knew, what I dared not say.
That I’d die; inward and outward,
if I continued to stay.
I tried, and failed to ignore the lust crazed elephant in the room.
For it embodied every element of the marital doom.
Fast forward to now; three years have gone by.
My former residence an old friend, though sly.
Only seeing him to greet
the daughters and grands; the real treat.
My soul at rest and without hurt,
but if there’s a verbal jab, cool fury I’ll assert.
Because I’m not the one I was before;
seeing a much better world outside his door.
His every past word, just to fill me with dread.
Fully believing I’d never leave.
But by Grace, I did.
And now he’s there alone; left to grieve.
Shontay Luna is a self-proclaimed goddess that lives in the Midwest with mix of pens, paper and Sons of Anarchy’s Juan Carlos “Juice” Ortiz fanfiction fantasies. A part-time public service worker by day, her poems have appeared in WestWard Quarterly, The Listening Eye, Text Power Telling, Umbrella Factory Magazine, Canyon Voices, Toasted Cheese, The Beatnik Cowboy and The Insurgence, among others. The author of four chapbooks of poetry, ‘The Goddess Journal’ is themed with puzzles and affirmations to elevate feminine self-esteem. Another is ‘To James & Sarah with Love’ - a Silent Generation slang memorial to her paternal grandparents.