Two Weeks

Some weird poetry from 2003, when I was a wee child.

two weeks before

and the morning after

all that mattered was not what really happened

where it brings us now, or what a gamble

we'd just taken.

It was you planting your signature hasty goodbye

sweetie on my cheeks in the elevator just before

the doors opened to my morning; and I would

step out to the tune of one bewitched.

It was you seeking out my lips under those

sheets, in the dizzy assurance of one who never

gave much thought to all that

she said; about as clueless as I was,

But at least I never pretended to know any better, and

even came out to the truth that morning brought.

two weeks later

and a headache after

all that matters is not what games we played

what games played us, or which part of you

I saw through.

It is coarseness lingering over still fresh wounds

threatening to persist in the spite of me dumping

them in pungent saline thinking it might remove

each vestige of my guilt.

It is your image cruising over my nightscape

explaining, in the manner I knew best, how

once you were done with me these would be

all you'd leave me with.

I ought to have listened, somewhere in the interim

of that morning and this night, but tried too hard

at mending the chasm between my yes and your no.

two weeks later

and a heartache after

who can say for sure what games we played?

all that matters is not the end heralding your

beginning, but the beginning receiving my end.

It will be me seeking a closure you were too selfish to grant,

calming a present lover's fears, being the pawn

in this game of which I was co-creator;

taking danger by its horns yet scarcely daring

to hazard a breath, for it may conjure your illusion.

two weeks later, and a mourning after

it will be me claiming your scalp, not that

I care much for victory or vague triumph: only

in hastening the signature dawn of a second morning.