Again? (so many Mondays)

Is this Monday again? I wasn’t looking. I wasn’t paying attention. I walked right into it, writing while walking, and sulking while my feet were still moving, and she was above me, in thin air.

I ordered roses for her from the florist. They sent her lilies. How did they know? Were they looking through my window when my face pinched in pain? Did they read my letters and follow my halting steps?

I wish this wasn’t a true story. I wish it was a horror that people read, dog-earing the pages to the ghastly parts they want to show their partners later. I wish it was fiction in the purest sense

At what point did I understand that there was hope? What was elusive, dodging me, and mocking me, is at arm’s length. That is a good deal closer than in my youth, giving up the dreams for thralldom.

Pleasure is fleeting. But it returns, I know it, somewhere around Thursday of the month, a refreshing gust in the middle of swelter.

Something in the weather

It is raining like mad, the clouds of yesterday
getting something off their chests, the
way we treat one another, and how
we mow each other down, with our cars
and our words, without a thought. Isn’t it easy
to forget the other guy, when I know what I need
and scratch for it, and the clouds see, and cry. The
birds keep singing, but they squawk and ruffle
feathers. They know, they know, don’t they
that we are destroying one another, when
we could, couldn’t we? We could forgive.
We could love.

Carpentry

If doing is more than saying
then let us mend our fences

with words

a glue that will eventually

give way to time

if not for the act

of a kind hand

Grandpa, does 2 pair beat three of a kind?

Most people’s hindsight is 20/20.
-Richard Armour

The older I get the more I let go of petty grievances and bitter memories. Who needs them? That is a heck of a way to start a story, but I have to fluff it a bit because it is not a very long story. I suppose my bad feelings came from jealousy. I was envious of friends who talked about glowing Christmases with grandparents around the table, those especially whose extended family lived nearby. Our family trips were usually when someone died, and so years between we would see our grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, get our cheeks pinched, and get told how tall we were getting, and how I had my uncle’s nose.

The rest of the story

and then the sun came out, and
I was handed mercy and love
from an old friend, someone
with nothing else to lose
showing empty hands, with
no bill, no cost, no strings, and
I remembered a dog I had as a child
that wanted no more than this
to sit together