Poems by Wendy Brown Mignosa

"Give everyone the benefit of the doubt."
That's what I always teach.
But even my own words of wisdom
are now somewhat out of reach.

I cannot begin to explain my disappointment and distress
caused by a friend who has yet to acknowledge my unhappiness.
Unbelievably thoughtless, inexplicably rude,
my anger is boiling over at such undeserved attitude.

My time, my energy, my support and my constant concern
are apparently shrunk down to nothing when asked for just once in return.
Selfish? Unthinking? Or simply careless remarks?
Origins don't really matter to me once they have entered into my heart.

Wait it out, do not respond at all
is what I am sincerely trying to do.
But I may eventually lose that battle
and the friendship could become a wound.

In a sea long ago I lost my guiding light,
My focus blurred as in the dead of night.

How can time have so quickly passed?
Like alabaster sand racing through an hourglass.

Half my life now lived without her laughing eyes,
Her soft embrace, and her warm smile.

To turn back time is all I desire,
A child's dream with a woman's fire.

I still weep for the grandmother my children never knew.
She is forever with me each day and night through.

I don't know what happened
or why you cannot see
The mistrust you have caused
by how you treated me.

My shock and disbelief
were all I could feel.
All your continued retorts
were unbelievably surreal.

I should have let it go,
and assumed you were somehow pained.
But I took it into my heart
and now we're both emotionally drained.

I finally reached out to you
after two long days had passed.
I found you were receptive
and seemed much more relaxed.

A phone call would solve our problem
I told myself and you.
You said you would call me
and I believed this to be true.

The day passed into night,
the following dawn was spent.
No call did I receive,
no words could we repent.

You promised you would show me
you'd from now on be always true.
But instead by your inaction
our friendship has become unglued.

You claimed to be a brother,
more family than friend.
How easily it was recanted
so it must have been pretend.

"Irreconcilable differences" used to seem an odd term to me
when people used it to describe their unexplainable misery.

Unfortunately, this concept I now can no longer evade
when pieces of my heart lie everywhere dismembered and betrayed.

Your constant barrage of anger, attitude, and distrust
leaves me broken and feeling nothing for you but waves of disgust.

It was all once so easy and loving thoughts once stayed
but the heart knows too well that the head cannot be dissuade.

The head knows what is right, what is fair, and just.
It is wrong to continue a life full of lies and mistrust.

Your excuses are as endless as the apologies that follow.
Your smiles are given to everyone else, but to me are nothing but hollow.

What will life be without you?  Will I loose all that I tried to save?
I am willing to try this world alone rather than continue with this charade

"The Strong One",
she'll always be ok.
It's never very easy
when no one considers your pain.

Being so often disrespected
as if my feelings do not matter.
The world injurs me too
in case you couldn't fathom.

Each fiber in my being aches
from holding it all together.
Everyone else comes first apparently
as I slowly become untethered.

Growing more weary,
and no respite in site.
Every day it's the same
whether morning or night.

I didn't ask for this role
and may just one day implode.
Obedient since my very birth
to just do as you're told.

I never dreamed of my wedding
or a dress decorated in white.
Never had thoughts of flowers
or a church filled with delight.

Lucky for me that dream was not had,
for my white turned too quickly to black.
No lifetime of bliss, something greatly amiss
as my happiness was unbelievably attacked.

But negativity aside, I was soon to realize
that events do truly happen for a reason.
Eventually I had to move on, learn a new song
and only wait for the very next season.

He arrived not long after and was happy to bring
all the friendship he uniquely knew I needed.
Like a breath of fresh air he was happy to bare
all his dreams for a future we could believe in.