I Guess the Honeymoon Is Over

I might have asked you to lift a finger,

Or to lay one down, and let it linger.

I could have asked you to tell me what's wrong.

I might have asked your help so I could follow along.

I might have asked you to dance with me, out in the street.

I could have asked you to to say where you want to eat.

I could have asked you to do your best

To remind me why you're different from the rest,

But I just asked for my freedom from you.

It was just one more thing you weren't willing to do.

My Irene

You were a breeze in life's blizzard,

A moment in memory's eternity,

A perishable, cherishable challenge,

A whole relationship unspoken.

I have every right to soon forget.

I've even have half a mind to let

My anger burn through all that's left,

Leave where you swelled my breast a cleft,

Or just to detest,

But I haven't yet.

The Next Step

Human life is out of order

In every sense of the phrase.

It has sequence, in the loosest sense;

Theme doesn't rule over our days.

We aren't separate pieces assembled.

We do not come in a kit,

Nor with an instruction booklet.

We are not, can not be, completed.

We are not as simple as that,

But if you are willing to admit

That you're no more than an Erector set

Mistakenly manufactured of fluid and flesh,

Then feel free to say you're “taking the next step,”

But I never want to hear it again.

Flexibility

I have been to you wall and editor,

Cliff Notes and coat rack and smartecarte.

I can be an entertainer or a hammer.

I am the toolbag who would become toolbox.

You have returned more than the thought

As teacher and manager and nurse,

As audience and muse and producer.

We have been to each other second parents,

Feeding and clothing one the other's heart,

We have both filled needs of happenstance,

But we missed the father-daughter dance.

We have not traced the mortal step,

“The next step,” “the final step,”

Which, in my experience, is no step up,

Which, as I know, is not final or meaningful,

But love is flexible.

Survival of the Fittest

I do not need to be known or called.

I am neither my name nor a rapper, after all.

I have an entire drawer full of names.

They're disposable. Though different,

That makes them the same.

Marshall is probably Shady sometimes,

But I've never even felt Sarah Valentine.

I do not need approval or love.

I am not my source of funding.

I do not, in fact, need anything

That can easily be found in a wallet.

My species has managed to persist

Through grinding poverty,

Through indecent exposure,

Through deliberate obstruction.

My rough crossings are marked for me.

My hands are light and my right foot heavy

With the knowledge that they shall pass.

Chronological Conundrum

You are impeccable

In your watching and reading.

Your words are always worth hearing.

You are interesting,

But I didn't find that out

Until I was already interested.

I don't know how you managed it.

Get Crackin'

Life is a familiar mystery,

A woman's body language,

A foreign tongue I haven't used in ten years,

A complicated technical jargon,

A substitution cypher.

I can read it, but I don't know what it means.