Testing Affection

When I booked a sea adventure with a lover, I confess
that traveling together put our passion to the test.
It’s true I grate on people. I’ll attest to this one fact,
but it’s also true at times that my guy could use more tact.

When he kept daily tallies of the cookies on my plate—
a definite statistic I preferred he not relate—
he meant it as a joke, but I considered it as snide.
Comments about my appetite are ones hard to abide.

He maintained a steady pace and told me not to dawdle,
and even though his rapid steps made him sort of waddle,
I should have kept that to myself, but I fear I did not;
and that is why things got as heated as they finally got.

I said I’d zero tolerance for what was going on
and before he knew it, I was off that ship and gone.
And this is often how it goes when new love goes out traveling.
It’s often hard to face new climes without romance unraveling.

Full disclosure: Although the imagery in this poem reflects a recent sea voyage taken with my sister, the content is purely fictional. Well, except for the cookies harvested from the abundant buffets, which we both consumed in rather embarrassing numbers, but really, no one took a tally and no one waddled!! Nor did it put sisterhood to the test.

The fact that traveling together can put friendship or romance to the test, however, can be all too true. The first European driving vacation I took with a certain lover, I couldn’t wait to get home so I never had to see the jerk again, and at one point I really did tell him to pull over and I got out of the car and vanished into a forested tract for awhile. Thankfully, he waited patiently and I eventually emerged and got back into the car. Things evened out when we got home and within a year, we were married. Nonetheless, there is a reason for the old adage  that “true love (and traveling together) never did run smooth.”

Guided by the needs of these prompts, I have combined the two stories and the frictional lovers’ driving misadventure has been transformed into a cruise.

Prompt words for Aug 25, 2019 are friendship, excursion, snide, attest and zero.