Unfair

Winding stone steps
Short yellow lights
A gnome's delight.

Tall grass with tassle blooms
Ground cover in periwinkle
Perrenials in yellow and royal blue.

A creek to my left,  heard but unseen, grows silent beneath my feet.
To my right it rushes downhill then under another street.

Atop the hill the view is bright and clear. I stop to take a photo of Mt Rainier. I'd pay a million dollars if I had it, to live in a house up here.

Then again,  I walk this street nearly each and every day. It seems unfair that they've paid so much for the view I see for free.

Words in My Mouth

Words on a page.  Words in my mouth.  Why did I speak those words?  Were they even mine to speak?  If not mine, then whose?  Yours?  His?  Hers?

What's in a word?  What meaning does it have to you?  Does it bring forth memory, a feeling, a vision, a reminder of the last time you heard that word uttered from your mother's mouth?  She said it in disgust, didn't she?  Now it has a negative connotation in your mind, though you hadn't realized it before.  In fact the word incites anger in you as though it accused you as your mother once had.  You become argumentative (though your boss had not used it to make an accusation).  Your pulse races.  You're irrational, can't see straight.  Your boss tells you to take it easy - just as your dad had when we walked in on you and your mom arguing.

"You always take her side," you'd said to your dad before raising your fist.

Your mom tried to pull you off.  She grabbed your wrist before you could throw a punch.  Instead he got a punch in first and you ended up hunched over - end of fight.  You never forgave her for that - not really.  You didn't speak to her for a week.  Then, bit by bit, it was swept under the rug and never spoken of again.