Truth Is Stranger Than......

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I used to read fiction,

when I was young,
dreaming away the days
imagining the fine romance
that would, one day, be mine.

The plot didn’t work out that way.
I set forth, starry-eyed,
without a clue,
not knowing that
what happened to me -
the not-choosing -
was, itself, a choice.

Heartache ensued,
as it always does
for starry-eyed fools,
who mistake Heathcliff’s surliness
for high romance and undying love,
instead of sensibly fleeing.

Next, to heal
my shattered illusions,
I chose novels
written by liberated women,
trying to find a roadmap
out of Clueless,
onto a road
with some sort of
reasonable destination.

Living in a shoe,
surrounded by children,
after the leading (con)man left
and we started over with nothing,
it occurred to me
that I was living
a more complicated
and messy plot
than any of the fiction
on my shelves.
In fact, had I sent in the synopsis,
any editor would have said,
“None of this is believable”.
It was just that weird.

Thankfully, the universe sent in
some gentle people,

midway through,
to heal my heart
and turn my life
back into blue skies
and sunny days.

I turned, then, to reading memoir,
lived experience,
tales of people who survived –
nay, transcended –
impossible situations.

I read of the Gulag,
concentration camps, women captives,
child soldiers, refugees,
people hanging onto life
by a shred,
breath and memory
and a soupcon of hope -
all that anchored them here.

They showed me how

our spirits rise.

I read a book dictated
after a stroke,
one eyeblink at a time,
one alphabet letter at a time,
and told myself to NEVER complain again
about how hard it was to write.

No, I don’t read fiction
any more.
Our lives are plots
to rival that of any novel.
My memoir will make
interesting reading,
if I ever have time
to write it.

LOL. For Susan’s  prompt at Midweek Motif: Reading fiction.