Ambuscade

Entirely safe from the world,
I sat behind walls 

no hand could breach,
doors locked 

against weather and strangers,

yet remained defenseless 

against my own mind.

The old losses 

know the hidden paths.

They crouch beyond sight, 

patient as hunters, 

bloated with preserved details:

the smell of rain 

on a forgotten afternoon, 

the sound of a voice 

now absent from the earth, 

the particular way 

laughter once filled a room.

Whether the wound 

is fresh and wet 

or silvered over 

with scar tissue, 

an ambuscade waits.

One word.

One street.

One song.

And suddenly the landscape changes.

A peaceful field becomes a battlefield. 

A clear sky gathers darkness. 

The familiar world reveals how fragile 

its welcome has always been.

Any one of thousands of memories 

can pull the pin.

For we are not assembled 

from flesh alone.

We are patchwork people, 

stitched together by experiences, 

bound with memory strings 

beneath the surface.

Hidden in our walk, 

our speech, 

the pauses between our answers,

are the remnants of everything 

that has touched us.

Loss teaches its lessons 

and then goes underground.

But it never leaves.

It waits in the shadows, 

knowing that eventually 

some harmless moment 

will wander past,

and the old grief will rise again,

springing from cover,

to remind us who we have been, 

what we have loved,

and what has been taken.

© Ron Simpson Jr. 

October 6, 2026