Attrition

Another angst-ridden poem about flawed relationships. Tiring, isn't it? The details change but the essence stays basically the same. New metaphor, same old shit. Why post it? Because I'm bored tonight and not up to writing something original. Although I have to say, if something like this is going to be part of my oeuvre, it's certainly a goad and motivation to write something better. I mean, four years out of high school and this is what I considered worth polishing up for publication? As the saying goes, it has a certain naive charm... But, really.

Attrition

we never showed the slightest discomfort
about the way things went wrong at the end.
no one really believed our straight faces.

we read the book together but when we neared
the end of the story, you sped up because you
were the faster reader and i lost the joy
of the plot as it reached a climax.

a matter of time:
the pages full of words i
needed to look up, but you
didn't have time for that.
you shed no tears:
after the heroine died upon reaching
her heart's desire, you sneered
openly at the blatant fiction.
no second chance:
you knew it was all a lie and
no woman lives in a perfect world
where she reaches an ultimate goal.
only too well:
the cards were marked from the
beginning, and only some know how
to read them and their secrets.

my heart fractured but you had set yours
in concrete to save it from sledgehammers.
you never felt the feather's touch.


August, 1980

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