My boys dad is named Daniel
He was mean to us
Could make love to me
Then because I used a different spoon for coffee
He picked up a table and threw it at me
When one baby was 18 months old
He threw him to the ground and started kicking him
Because he couldn't dress himself fast enough
I walked on egg shells from 22 to 30
My boys cowered in their beds
We were all afraid at times
Afraid to leave because of the threats of violence
College had me realizing I could make it alone
Domestic Violence Services helped me escape
He still taunted me for another 10 years
That is until the police in this town told him
Don't you ever come back to Oregon
Or you will go to prison for your sins
How he thought he was such a good family man
He is the Daniel that stole my young life
He is the Daniel that took away my Josh's self esteem
He is the Daniel that is stuck in Oklahoma now
He is the Daniel that his sons here have little or no love for
He is the Daniel that God will judge harshly if I were God!
There is a Daniel who's birthday is tomorrow
He was my neighbor for five years
I thought it was sad he lived alone
I had a family to raise and he seemed so young
But really he was two years older than me
We both have dual signs
One a Gemini and one a Pisces
He can be like twins
Kind then angry if he thinks his present is threatened
If he thinks his concubine here might upset his wife
He is all man in this world of false men
He is strong and rich and very smart
I know he loves me even though I am poor white trash compared
To his mansion on the hill and his world traveling wife
He loves the poet in me and reads my words alone
Moreover, he would not hit me, or beat my children
He only protects his cause, which I am not sure what for
He has no children to leave his money to
He has no reason to be so selfish with the material things
He needs to learn that you cannot take anything with you
From this life but your soul and the clothes on your back
That is if you're not cremated and spread over the seas
He does not appreciate my abilities to please
I was faithful to him for a few years
Then he told be not to be
Now I think he wishes that he could change his mind
He has the resources to be kind to both women
It is too bad he did not want my love for him to propagate
As though my poetry for him used to do
There is a Daniel on this poetry site
He is an artist of great beauty
He is a kind man it seems who depression
Rears it's ugly head for and he writes about it
He thinks maybe he is not that good
He's multitalented and lives off of his art I think
The photos he takes turns the usual into the pretty
That is my opinion anyway which doesn't matter too much
He's learned that his thoughts are what matter in the existence of me
Me being him in the mirror of the soul of each one of us individually
His self portrait on this site has him looking like a psychic to me
Because of that, I read his words and glean his wisdom
I have been going there for almost three years now
He is here safe and sound and around to come back to
Sometimes that's all a Daniel can do in this life
Tell his tale and not swell with too much pride
Well the pride's okay if it isn't false, then it's survival
Because I cannot imagine being a man the way men are
To find a kind Daniel in my lifetime is a sign from God
One who is creative and listens to his soul perhaps
And not other Daniels fraught with the hardness of terrortory
A neutral Daniel who doesn't even know I am here mostly
Even though I am and he says "I am what I am" like Popeye
This old girl admires that and the Brutus Daniels
Of the world can bully their way through
While I will take the spinach leaves a poet anytime
To put in my pipe and smoke as they will strengthen my heart
From the cold, better-than-thou, mean, wife beating
Daniels I have personally known in my fifty-one years
There is one more, however, named Daniel Love
And I thought he was joking when he said I was hot at fifty
He wanted to get with me and he was twenty-five
He begged me to be with him until I gave in to his plea
I am a pushover sometimes because I feel too much
He was a kind man and didn't live in my town
I saw him a few times when he comes here to visit from
The great state of Washington above the town, Wennatchee. somewhere
He tells me I am like no other girl he's known
That's because I am 51 now going on 16 and it's my fault
I refuse to grow up and lose the youth and beauty I already lost
Back when I was young and that very cruel Daniel hurt me
Now Daniel Love wouldn't hurt me at all
However, he did lie saying he was twenty five years old
Because later I found out from his cousin he was really only twenty
Maybe I should be ashamed of myself for seeing someone
Younger than my youngest son who's getting married soon
Perhaps God will punish me for giving him my body
I don't think so not in this life of mine and
The Daniels I have known
Where some are kind, some neglectful
And some so mean they tried to turn my heart to stone.
