Who Can Tell
#1 of Poems
Give me a week away from work and I'm bound to write something ...
Who can tell?
You could say it was the balmy summer night, or those three blue moons, when you leaned on my shoulder and, with a coy grin, whispered, 'You're such a catch you know, and you'll find the glove of your life soon enough!' Ha-ha. Oh, you're funny.
You once told me life was an ocean, that there were plenty of fish out there. And you were right ... but you didn't tell me that drowning can take months, even years, and if I were to come up for air, how much it would burn.
You said I'd get dreams! (And for that matter someone to chase them for!) That turned out well - sometimes a little too well. You didn't say that sometimes I'd wake up gasping for breath, or have to unlearn to sleep a certain way, or find room to take up the rest of the bed.
You offered, maybe I should find someone to lie with, and I did. I could hold her (or him) and we'd dance along a wonderful grey line with every intent to lie, to fake and to fib, and go back on promises together.
You didn't warn me how age changes not how wrong we can be, and that the worst circumstances can come from the very, very best of intentions or that I'd never get better at holding someone's gaze, or that those beautiful forest eyes would grow too much within me...
You neglected to mention I'd have to actually live with hearing her in the rain, a Bing Crosby song, or seeing him in my character select screen, or hearing his or her favorite band in the car, that'd i'd miss my exit rummaging for napkins to wipe away the ... lyrics, that all the simple things in my life were going to be haunted in the happiest way.
But who's to blame? You're the one I took and ran with. I can measure you in the seconds of a hug and count you by the little shapes on my valentines card, or by the laughing breaths after my best pun.
And who even are you? An ugly, four-letter syllable that no one wants to hear. Nothing but a joke.