the reason:

the lighthouse built in 1874 and lit the same year stood like a resplendent bride against the blue and lavender aging father sky giving her away the edge was just there one four inch move and then

the back story:

i would gulp my chocolate milk shake with my little fat legs dangling from the counter stools peering down at the green and white checker board linoleum floor

an hour before the reason:

with the wind blowing in my ear i catch a few notes of  “House of the Rising Sun” emanating from somewhere in the bowels of the tightly knit drunken biker crowd

trigger A:

child-hood memories float slowly into my head as i breathe deeply the Pall Mall smoke wafts by intermingled with the sea weedy odor from below the cliff

the back story’s back:

my mind wandered again into my mother’s ghost i loved studying her design patterns thousands of silk spools and the sequins and crystals God’s firmament in my mother’s house

smiling at Dr. Pang:

i loved to listen to my mother talk in that sophisticated German accent for most of my life she was as far away from me as the horizon i was looking at now

good Samaritan getting complicated:

a scratchy voice tore at the rice paper breeze midway he turned back to look at me and blew me a kiss as he melted into the small crowd

flat lips move at Dr. Pang:

my mother whipped me with yellow nylon rope every time she struck me on the legs thighs or torso the rope would welt up my skin and leave a red hot sting i could move but i didn’t

trigger B:

later that rainy night i awoke in the lobby from a very young age i discovered that an aching soul however would need a stronger analgesic

eclipsed mental decomposure:

i squeezed the memory out of my mind and as i removed my fingers from my eyelids a most beautiful black canopy covered the sky as diamond stars throbbed simultaneously i focused and marveled at such beauty it still causes such wonder in me to remember the night that the moon ate the dark

Dr. Pang concerned at the options:

for years i only spoke if spoken to and i kept my answers to only seven words or less i counted them i laugh about it now i was like Coppola’s Kilgore surfing through my own metaphoric napalm bombs

breakthrough perhaps:

she cut me up and sewed me back together again in her way the welts on my body were the fibers of strength that have helped me endure physical pain her harsh words were the sleeves and pant legs covering me protecting me from infinite poisonous tongues her rejection and unfair judgments were the thread holding me together when life’s sharp scissors cut into me