Tag Archives: End of a love affair

The Other Shoe

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The Other Shoe

Because it’s winter.  Because you’re you—
an annoying pebble in my shoe.
My darkest dream, my shuddered sigh.
A tear unfallen from my eye.

You call my action radical.
I call your action terminal.
No more the tiny cringing wren,
no more the clucking, docile hen.

This time, your insult vilely hurled,
my reflex impulses unfurled,
my anger at the optimum,
I call you ingrate lazy bum.

I kick you out into the cold
in an action brave and bold.
I lock the door and pull the blind.
Not cruel, but suddenly I’m kind

to myself, so long obscured
by all injustice I’ve endured.
On my bed, once shared with you,
I sit and drop the other shoe.

Better alone with what will come
than with a selfish doltish bum.
I square my shoulders, fall to sleep.
No Lord my soul will have to keep.

Don’t know where this came from. It’s fiction fueled by past feelings of escape from a bad love affair, I guess. Blame the prompt words.Prompts today were winter, because, radical, optimum and wren.

Uprooted

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Uprooted

“Can you get even closer to the tree?” he said—so I went inches from the trunk of the tallest of the trees, crowding the fern that reached tentative tentacles from the tree’s shade into a ray of sun that escaped the fast-collecting clouds. “I’ll protect you,” he had said years ago, when we declared our union. But now, in this time of the approaching storm, I wondered about both tree and one who over the years had been in turn protector and threat. In times of gentle rain, a shield. In times more volatile, that sudden bolt that left bruised places easily hidden. I saw the tree’s scar, devoid of bark, burned at the edges––that place now easily overlooked in the shadows. And I moved away from the tree, walking with new confidence to the car. Uprooted, finally, after so many years.

 

Italicized line is from Sharon Olds’ poem, “Pine Tree Ode.” For the dVerse Poets Pub prompt–to develop a prose piece of 144 words making use of a line from another poet’s poem about a tree. Go HERE to read what other writers did with this prompt or to participate yourself.

 

The Other Side of the Story

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The Other Side of the Story

I think it’s just fair dinkum that you suffer repercussions
from the things you said to me during our last discussions.
I grant that breaking up is something that is hard to do,
but for sheer brutality, I give the prize to you.
I must say it’s unfathomable that you have forgotten
all those infidelities to which you’d never cotton.
I hate to raise old issues that we’d both rather ignore,
but before you pick your suitcase up to storm out of the door,
I feel I must remind you that the suitcase that you’ve packed
does not belong to you but is my favorite, in fact.
And the car you might intend to drive away in in a huff
packed with all “your” furniture and other handy stuff,
is registered to me, in fact, and all that’s packed inside
was paid for by my paycheck, and so it will reside
right here with me as you embark on your lonely shuffle
out into the cold with your belongings in a duffle.
Ta ta my dear malingerer, I hope that you do well
as you descend from easy street down to your private hell.

Prompt words for today are repercussions and  dinkum,
and, since Your Daily Word hasn’t published their August prompts yet, I’m going to use the three prompts of theirs that I missed on the 26th, 27th and 28th while I didn’t have internet connection for three days: Raise, ignore and unfathomable.

Love Spell

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Definition of spell: 

—a state of enchantment
—a strong compelling influence or attraction
—an indeterminate period of time waited
—a continuous period of time (did a spell in prison)
—a period of bodily or mental distress or disorder
(spell of coughing, fainting spells)

Love Spell

As with so many, their flirtation
started over a libation.
Tequila conquered hesitation
and augmented jubilation
Minutes later, infatuation
 roused their hearts to palpitation.

Palpitation turned into lust,
a string of cans pulled through the dust,
a sign: Niagara Falls or bust!!!
Their honeymoon’s great joy and thrust
made every day a celebration
with not one hint of love’s cessation.

A single simple act of treason
ended up being the reason
why true love’s flare and excitation
turned into a conflagration
that started as an agitation
and ended up as litigation.

The judge soon granted the decree
that set the bonded lovers free
with a newfound realization
that a certain titillation
brought about by alcohol
could be the rise before the fall.

The prompts today are flare, reason, infatuation and trust.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/11/rdp-monday-flare/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/11/fowc-with-fandango-reason/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/11/your-daily-word-prompt-infatuation-february-11-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/11/trust/

Silver Platter

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Silver Platter

I would not have your heart, my dear, on a silver platter,
for it does not seem to hold the things that really matter.
It only holds the riches to which greedy men aspire.
It does not hold the sentiments that stir us or inspire.
Humor and humility you lack in equal measure.
I fear that life with you would be lacking in the pleasure
that is the spice of living—that gives existence savor.
Life with you would just be rich, but sadly lacking flavor.
So keep your diamonds and your yacht and stow your silver platter.
I’d rather spend my time acquiring things that really matter!

For Daily Inkling’s prompt Silver Platter.

The Memento

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The Memento

Yes, I received your letter and the enmity enclosed.
And yes, it has accomplished what you probably supposed.
I here enclose your photograph. I have no further need of it.
If I want to end the grieving, I must dispose of the seed of it.

I’m burning all your letters and crumbling your dried roses,
disposing of your paintings of me in different poses.
I’m in need of no mementos to bring you back again.
I need no souvenirs to remember all the pain.

These ashes are the lovelock you asked me for that night.
I found it in your pillowcase the morning of our fight.
Its cremated remains were easiest to send.
They are so easily scattered to signify our end.

The prompt words today are letter, enmity, photograph and accomplish.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/01/11/rdp-friday-letter/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/01/11/fowc-with-fandango-enmity/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/01/11/your-daily-word-prompt-photograph-january-11-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/01/11/accomplish/

Interloper

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Interloper

How did you find your way into my dreams,
ripping my comfort apart at the seams?
Once I’d escaped to back rooms of my self,
still I found thoughts of you stacked on a shelf
carefully obscured both in front and above
by other less dangerous memories of love.

You walked nonchalantly into the room
that I had just cleared with a cloth and a broom
of other dangers and sadnesses, not
knowing that once again I had been caught.
Now I hide out behind walls at the back
where all of my worst fears reside in a stack.

Cowering here as you stride through the place
that your very presence has turned dark and base.
How could I have loved such a frightening soul?
The box of my heart turned into a bowl
with all of my secrets and weakness revealed—
things that I now know I should have kept sealed.

There you sit quietly, perched on a chair,
one hand on the desk top, one hand on your hair,
writing cruel words—I know about me.
I ease my way over, hoping to see,
but the paper is empty, your ink has turned clear
making impossible all that I fear.

As now I remember that I let you in,
forgetting all else in the charm of your grin.
The joy of your hand as it guided me sure
across the dance floor—all that allure
that kept me involved in the surface of you
avoiding the dangers that later I’d rue.

So even now, so far from your threat,
I find myself struggling, caught in your net.

This is a rewrite of an earlier poem For dVerse Poets Open Link Night

 

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Mismatched

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Mismatched

You seem to dwell, dear, in the main
securely down in the inane.
If only you could just refrain
from loudly voicing your disdain.
Astrology you find a pain,
consider ESP insane,
while astral travel is the bane
of your existence and you’re fain
to scratch your head and shake your mane,
swearing you’ll open a vein
if I don’t try to put a rein
on my attempts to reach you where
you constantly refuse to fare.
Meditation’s out with you,
and you’ll have nothing to do
with Ouija boards or the I Ching.
You do not “Ohm” or chant or sing
to anyone or anything.
In short, you’re firmly planted here
on the earth, so dour and drear.
While my mind dwells in the stars,
yours hangs out in lowlife bars.
This love match has not scored a win.
Match.Com has erred again.
And so, my dear, ta-ta, adieu.
I guess I’m breaking up with you.
I fear that I have tried in vain
to find you on the astral plane.

The prompt today is astral.

Love Stories

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What fewer love stories there would be if we could see their endings—so many middles of romances left unread by those who read their last pages first. When I remember each past first kiss, it is in a mirror half obscured by the future reflected in it. One love is forever caught underwater where it gasps for air. Another is ashes floating out in rings to touch the edges of a lake which is shrinking inward from its banks, as though in complicity to aid their settling along its edges. Another lies in small droplets of blood on a road where it was ambushed, too late to be a message of anything but regret for love that died before the lover and a lover who died too soon. There are all these deaths of loves—like a class for the unfortunates who, kept in after school, are made to trace their lines again and again in the belief that love is taught by repetition and that wisdom comes from practice.

 

Jester: dVerse Poets Pub, Nov 15, 2017

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Jester

These tipped-up lips of wide renown
of the world’s most famous clown
are but pigment and not the man.
We know him not, for no one can.
No one assumes the painful task
of seeing what’s behind the mask.
The cloth that wipes it off each night
brings his true nature into sight,
for painted smiles are thrown away
as truth of night displaces day.
Underneath his painted mask,
he hides the truth we dare not ask.
One more day of tricks and laughter
cannot make up for what comes after.
His face, stripped down to flesh and bone,
reveals that he is all alone. 
A painted face, a made-up smile
cannot mend a lover’s guile.

For the dVerse  pub prompt.