Inner Walls

My inner walls are crumbling

I can feel them straining in the dark of night

Or at the movie house

when some fleeting image on the screen

sparks a latent memory

and it spurts right out

stabbing at my throat and chest

I utter an involuntary sigh

and my wife whispers

“What’s the matter?”

and I shake my head

pretending I didn’t hear  

There is a secret room

at the back of my brain

that I have used since infancy

to bury certain thoughts and feelings

Painful happenings

Embarrassments

Distressingly stupid acts

A lie I once told to a girl

How I nearly harmed my two-year-old

The time I nearly killed us all on the turnpike

Past moments of agony and regret 

Locked away, sealed off

But now in my penultimate years

my arteries are brittle

and this room has gotten so crowded

so packed with refuse

that the walls are starting to crack

or even burst wide open

At first I tried desperately 

to hold them together

But now I’ve come to realize

that maybe I should let the bad stuff out 

Poke at it, massage it 

Turn it this way and that

To accept the whole package

Warts, pustules, and all