The Great Escape

Having seen evil,
spent an hour or more
in the same room
with him,
I felt both a strong urge
to wipe his image
from my mind,
so as to go back to a life
of having never seen
or known
or been exposed
to Evil
and at the same time
I felt an obligation
to destroy him
as if that was my duty
to protect
all whom he
might otherwise come to harm...

Isn't that what I owed
one of his victims?
I could still hear her words
and probably always would,
“Are you just going to let him
get away with it?”
And just the same,
his words echoed through time...
He said, she had disrespected him,
and for that she knew she would have
to escape
in the daylight.
So she boarded a train
the next day,
for a state
up north,
from where she had come.
Now I know,
many years later,
that he cannot be destroyed
and I just want to forget him,
forget his name,
act as if I never met him...
No, act is if I never knew
he existed.

Bruce Whealton has been the co-editor and publisher of Word Salad Poetry Magazine since 1995 and their newest publication, Haiku Ramblings. They publish both on the web at WordSaladPoetryMagazine.com and in print. Bruce has a Bachelors Degree from Georgia Institute of Technology and a Master's Degree in Social Work. He has been writing and studying poetry for many years with various mentors. His poetry has been published recently in The Horror Zine, and the associated Anthology called “And Now the Nightmare Begins: The Horror Zine. His poems have also appeared in “lines written w/a razor,” “Childe Bryde,” “lunatic chameleon,” “the thin edge of staring, “Chance Magazine,” Venus Rising, the Wilmington Star News' Port City Poets, and “Gravity Hill,” and “Simple Vows Anthology” which is put out by St. Andrews College Press.

Find more by Bruce Whealton in the Author Index.

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