Regrets

Doors closed to me

a kind of madness always

My grandparents’ house

childhood kingdom

occupied

by strangers

derails my breath

Black rose-flowered dress

no longer worn

discarded

slithers back

into my mental wardrobe

I itch

with a need to wear it

A party I could have gone to

had I known I wanted to

begins, catches fire and ends

in my obsessed imagination

Too late to change my mind?

And now,

too late?

And you, gone from my sight

And all the things I didn’t ask

and didn’t know

and won’t now, ever

I begin to measure

what will never be

again

too late

regret a fever

rising