What did I expect? Some sleight of hand? A marching band? The stuff of cabaret? What I got was this: A kiss goodbye, a cheerful lie. It took my breath away. I could move on but nothing fun has ever come from acting my age. I’ll write a song. I’ll make it long. I’ll make it stretch at the seams with rage. My last bitter love affair lives on and on. Life has been such poetry since you’ve been gone! What was the walkie talkie I’d been dreaming of? Better than being in is after love. Being in love with walkie talkies. You announced your plans in Mexico. The words were slow and sounded etched in stone.
“Best of luck with that,†was all I said, but in my head: “I hope you die alone.†It was hard at first, feeling like I’d burst, feeling several bricks short of a load, but I made the twist. How could I resist? Now I take my heartbreak a la mode. My last bitter love affair lives on and on. Life has been such poetry since you’ve been gone! What was the heaven I’d been dreaming of? Better than being in is after love. It’s hard being so resilient, every word I say so brilliant, when everyone but you can see. No, you haven’t heard the last of me. You made the end feel like the start, lied to the judge inside my heart, and now I stand here feeling foolish but a fool is what I am. You broke my heart and my resolve. You told the apes when to evolve. Here I believed in the creation! You shut that door with a slam. You just fall in and out of love. I’ll never know what you’re thinking of, and as push quickly comes to shove you’ll just let me down. You took the keys, then crashed the car. You took the coins, then broke the jar. You failed the test, but raised the bar. You took my name, then named a star. You left a wound that left a scar. Your parting words were “Au revoir.â€
You say I should have seen it coming. Our whole life was a sham. You just fall in and out of love. I’ll never know what you’re thinking of, and as push quickly comes to shove you’ll just let me down. Entropy won’t be keeping me in your arms any longer. Gravity won’t be grounding you anymore; you are stronger than you have any right to be. Better you than me! You just fall in and out of love. I’ll never know what you’re thinking of, and as push quickly comes to shove you’ll just let me down. Darling, I forgot to turn off the oven. Oh, if I could forget then who knows what else I could forget? Darling, I have a tendency to make decisions I will one day regret. Oh, who knows which ones I will regret? If everything goes with the day, then I will try my best to keep my memories inside me. What did I do today? Oh, I look into my head but it declines to guide me. You slipped away. I would give up most of anything for you beside me now. Yesterday, I woke up in such strange surroundings yet the room was the same one I wake up in everyday. Places change, oh, and people change. It’s just a given, but the changing has lately been strange in the worst sort of way. If everything goes with the day, then I will try my best to keep my memories inside me. What did I do today? Oh, I look into my head but it declines to guide me. You slipped away. I would give up most of anything for you beside me now. Darling, I am finding lately that I can’t remember most of my childhood and half of what I did today. This morning I forgot to turn off the oven. Where am I going and what am I going to say? Where were we going and what am I trying to say? Where have you gone to and what was I going to say? Look at the stars! Isn’t it clear tonight? They could have been ours. It’s like it’s your job to slight me. Perennial flower, you’ve got me wishing spring would come in January. I waited for hours. I beg you not to make our story cautionary. Look at the sky! Orion I swear I saw! Forever’s a lie. You’re only mine when the spring can thaw you. Perennial flower, you’ve got me wishing spring would come in January. I waited for hours. I beg you not to make our story cautionary. All of the buildings and all of the cars, all of the weddings and all of the stars.
They just weren’t built to last. On all of our walks down the streets in the fall you made promises lightly you’d never recall. I guess we weren’t meant to…I guess we weren’t meant to last…to last all year! She left me for no reason, as far as I can tell. My heart is changing seasons and they say I look like hell. She said I never loved her, but I doubt that could be true since my memories before her are so far between and few. I never saw it coming, since I never caused her pain. My heart beats like the drumming on the window of the rain. The sea on the horizon is of the same blue as my eyes. Just like me, it owes its blue to the reflection of the skies. If it wasn’t love If it wasn’t love If it wasn’t love then I don’t suppose I know how to love at all. I clean the house we lived in, and all is in its place, walk the hallway past the mirror and catch sight of my face. I study lines and wrinkles that have shown in recent years, all the signs of veiled emotions, all the marks of missing tears. In my head I trace the patterns of the problems in my life, recall the moment’s hesitation before she said she’d be my wife. Patron saint of losing causes, please tell me how to feel because I’m drowning in my losses, because I don’t know what is real. If it wasn’t love If it wasn’t love If it wasn’t love then I don’t suppose I know how to love at all. A woman with failing sight mistook me for a priest. I said, “No, ma’am, I am not that sort of beast.†A blind man with heightened hearing heard me and he said, “To hear you is to listen to the dead.†A child from a broken home mistook me for her dad. I said, “No, dear, I’d be worse than what you had.†A mirror set on my wall to show me as I am showed me backwards, and I didn’t give a damn. With no idea of what I am or whether I exist I just call you once and twice and thrice to tell you what you missed since you’ve been gone. The moments that come between the present and the past—they elude me when I wanted them to last. The sacred, the secular, the holy and the base are distinctions that don’t work upon your face.
When you were here with me, I felt I was complete. I was nervous, but was pulled towards the heat. I’m reaching through this mess to draw you towards my side, a revival of the parts of me that died. With no idea of what I am or whether I exist I just call you once and twice and thrice to tell you what you missed since you’ve been gone. The days go by so slowly now with no idea of what I am or whether I exist I just call you once and twice and thrice to find out what I’ve missed since you’ve been gone. We will meet on a train headed somewhere south. You will have me from the time you open up your mouth and say: “Hello! What a wonderful night to be on a train and meeting someone new. I knew it would be you.†We will start where we are and fall into place, an off-center photograph centered by your face, and what a world! What a wonderful world to have waiting there for me when I arrive. I’m thrilled to be alive! I’ll be walking around and trying to map the universe using nothing besides my brain with my feet on the ground, just emotional points to plot my way to a place back before this pain. If I’ve been born and reborn, I’m sure the one certainty that follows me is the loss running through my head. When first you love you are torn. Unless the first is the one you marry, you will feel it until you’re dead. I’m remembering falling in love with the world, falling asleep with a girl who’s showing signs of love. I will look through the scope at constellations reformed to suit the whims of the girl I’ve been dreaming of. I’ll be cradling hope with my finger on where the pulse should be looking for signs of love. I’ll be remembering falling in love with the world, falling asleep with a girl who’s showing signs of love. I’ll be remembering falling in love with world, lost so deep in the arms, half-asleep, of a girl, as one in the world, at once in the world and apart. It’s morning again. I’m lying in bed with my head in my hands and the ceiling’s all I have seen for the past week. I would kill to be rid of these feelings. This is not the way I saw my life unfolding. I feel like I’m barely holding on. How could this be? Well, I believed in my judgment and here’s where it got me: where I began. How many chances for grace could my lifetime allot me? I just figured I was strong and too clever to be wrong about forever. Yes. Yes. I said yes. Yes. I said yes. We fell in love. Well, at least I fell in love. See, I never could read you. I figured I could always suss out the themes from your eyes if I’d need to. I just figured that one day I’d unmask you. You’d open up if I asked you to. I thought our love could have had the heart of a song, the grace of a dancer. How it went wrong? Well, if there’s a God then I dare him to give me an answer. I just figured we were strong and too clever to be wrong about forever. Yes. Yes. I said yes. Yes. We said yes. Hours have passed since I last wrote and since then I’ve had a revelation. I lied in the bath and suddenly found myself changed with the sense of elation. If you’ve read this note this far, please keep reading.
To what you are, what you need it’s yes. Yes. I’ll say yes. Yes. I’ll say yes. Please say yes. The winter was as bleak as any I remember. Spring came and went so meekly I thought it was still December. Spring will come again next year to melt the frost upon my winter lawn, but it’s not that way with all things; some things that go are gone. I worried through the night, obsessing over feelings. “To love is not a right,†I said, and stared up at the ceiling. As soon as I had thought this thing, the universe erupted in a yawn. There was nothing I could do about it; some things that go are gone. She came to me with love and the promise of tomorrow. She washed away the loneliness, the tears of hurt and sorrow, but as we both grew comfortable, I took her for as granted as the dawn. I never thought of what I learned once, that some things that go are gone. How slowly the world seems to change, and then all at once! She said, “If you only knew what’s right in front of you!†She left me in the fall. It may have been a Friday. She said, “I’m so sick of it all, and now I’m off to do things my way.†If life is like a chessboard, then darling, now I’m moving like a pawn. How the tears came once she left me, but some things that go are gone.