When Honesty Honestly Doesn’t Pay

What if a small lie…

Could help the truth slide by
help someone who’s gone astray
sometimes it’s just the best way.

What if the small lie…

Would help someone feel better
make the world a nicer place
save another person’s face.

Honesty is the key
it’s plain to see
it’s a great policy;
to some degree.

What if the truth hurts…

Just remember to keep it small
it can get you through another day
when honesty honestly doesn’t pay.

© Rebecca Sanchez 2020

Written with Poets And Storytellers United for an open prompt (originally Poets United.)

Smooth white rocks line the familiar bed
A sad child sits close beside me by the stream
Providing me a harbor where I come to scream.

Yabbies, mountain lobster or mudbugs
Crawdads swimming against Nature’s mirror
I point them out to the girl who is now nearer.

Appalachian bristle fern surrounds us
No one will attend my nursing graduation
I share my news with these spirited crustaceans.

There will be no pictures or celebrations
Tadpoles are frolicking in a delightful fashion
My walk onstage will offer up silence, not passion.

Tears forming in my sore eyes yet once again
As I lean over, I see them mixing with the stream
This place of God’s where I come back to scream.

Who is this child I wonder as she offers me a hug
My parents drunk again, why on this specific week
The River Birch’s leaves begin to clap and speak

An unchanging skeleton template –
The foundation of every self
Is the same cascade of roots
Mapped out in a blueprint, essential
To the unfolding of a life.

We build costumes of ourselves around the frame work,
Skins new then old then made new again.
Or new then old then forgotten completely,
New year, new me.
But the old year, old me
Still lingers silently –
Hung on a hanger in the wardrobe,
Hidden amongst the other worn and torn
Uniforms of which me I’ll be today.

Today I may be washed and dried
With the creases ironed and holes patched
And sleeves attached, with rips repaired and
Complete with a belt and a bow in my hair,
But maybe tomorrow I will slip back into an old skin
To be momentarily reacquainted with
A memory, for the fun of remembering.
I will cloak myself in a costume of my…