she left, before morning

She left before morning, just as she’d planned,
telling no one, giving no one a hint.
They all slept unworried, her boys and the girl
and her husband whose nickname was Clint.

She did leave a note, handwritten, in print,
Told them all that she needed to go,
That they wouldn’t find her so they needn’t try
If they loved her, they’d just leave it so.

She drove 16 hours and six hours more
‘til she pulled to the side just to sleep.
In the wisp of a moment before nodding off
She asked Him her soul there to keep.

She woke hours later to early dawn’s dew.
The shudder it came like a shot
She’d made a mistake, a horrible one
Don’t think, just keep going, she thought.

They found her in Houston some 16 days more
In the back of her car on the road,
No number no address no ID or cards
No message no goodbye no note.

“Dear mom,” Maize had written when first she had left,
“please come home, we won’t make you cry.”
But fixing was over, any saving was through
And no one would know, ever, why.