In Our Fifties

Our chartreuse-colored love

The ugly chair now, that we don’t wish to sit in or admit brought comfort, respite

Nor will we throw it away

We mourn it in the kitchen like a death
Seemingly forever, while surrounded with casseroles of comfort food brought to us by well-meaning “friends”

We watch it as an epic film of someone else’s life
Sitting in the dark, screaming at the screen, warning of their err, fall from grace, then trauma

We escape it with our wanderlust-filled travels near and far
Photographing nature, plus wild wildlife who in-turn, chase us as we sleep, pseudo-nightmares that wake us at 3am

We do this
You, there, and me, here

Silk and brocade-covered hardwood frames we were and we are
Camaraderie and adventure that was to have brought us peace
Closure to the aching

What color was it initially, before the fade, we ask ourselves over and over

What we know for certain — it was an heirloom love

Before the spit up and sweaty workaday clothes soiled it
Before the pained animals in us tore it to shreds
Before our childhood loneliness, unresolved, relegated us to our corners in our fifties — upper lips bloodied, both of us

Walking attachment disorders, detached by default, from each other
All in one, single day

Eventually, we go to the curb with this shredded chartreuse thing

Pack up and move far away

Looking from the rear-view mirror at what was, we draw others’ ire as we drive too-slow down that road

It is always dusty Summer in our hearts’ mind’s eye

Fix-it Man

I tried, I swear I tried
To stop loving the Blue Mountains you swept me away to
To stop seeing them through your grey-green eyes

I prayed endlessly
Extend your hand once more to me down those towered hiking trails
Let me see heaven in your saunter again

I allowed foreign kisses
Fill this Orion-shaped wound, I vowed — still I stand, hollow
Waiting for your fix, for our paths to merge as you promised

Bad Actors

So there he was
That three-plus decades-old ghost of a love-of-my-life
Did we frolic and promise
I can’t say
Because suddenly, there he wasn’t

Did I wail, unrelenting
Did I bargain
You’re proof of said sale

Virtual man
Band-aid boy
Slapped against my heart, for I wanted healing quick

I let you
Cut me lengthwise with such narcissistic tongue

With this new heartbreak, find me
Not wailing
Not bargaining

Just reflecting
Lesson learned, this
Motherfuckers like you come and go in waves if I let you

Grown woman, now
I heal good, so no next time

Dime a dozen, you, spy boy, and I’ve put away my pocketbook

Comfort

Could there be more heav’nly sounds
More clear-cut answer to prayer
As these wondrous crickets’ songs
Bless the lonely air

Tear-stained girl, lovesick boy
“Keep the hope,” ’tis said
This night, they’ll keep you company
Their concert voids the dread