Ages 17 through 29

I left Nova Scotia in 1998. I buried the axe in the Gaspereau Valley beneath a landscape of Mountain and River. I burned my bra and abandoned my crutch on the New Brunswick border. I filled my pockets with poker chips and bet them one by one on beginnings undone. I changed my name and fancied myself a poet, pretending to understand Faulkner and Bukowski, trembling over men with expensive words and broken hearts. The only diamond I was ever anxious to wear was the one in my eyes; the kind that loses its shine at the bottom of an Ativan bottle. Summers pass and the diamond grows wild beneath the Dandelions. All my songs of burden failed and I of cannot run any more. All my songs of triumph failed and I cannot run any more. All my songs of love have failed and I cannot run any more. I smile now not because I am happy but because I understand.