ohh mary

You were saving yourself for someone

who wouldn’t create new civilizations in your bed.

You walked with evangelistic ease.

You weren’t about to settle for the quiet life.

You told your fellow grads during your valedictorian speech,

“Today, my still, pulsating heartbeats

with papal innocence and tomboy heroism.”

That summer, you knocked the color

out of your lips and put a face gloss on you

to make it look like you were climbing trees.

“I want a gentler, softer image,”

you whispered to a dying perennial.

“I also want to be romantic,

feminine, and ironic.”

Is that why you needed to find

a nice small place with a soul?

It’s not so simple anymore.

That virginal sad-eyed sad-sack

aesthetic no longer sells.

These days, glamor comes

in that scary, sequined way,

rooted in rhythm.

That entry in your journal scared me.

“Monday came like a porn star. 

A storm surge with the intensity of a

category 3 hurricane moved in with me, 

draping me in fireside bearskin furs, 

leaving in its wake a super outbreak 

of gale-force pain and paranoia.

Funny how some events fall short of 

God’s Original Plan.”

It was a unique high concept:

Lost girl befriends misfit/outcast and

the love and friendship that blooms

between them teaches them

important lessons.

You were the same

yesterday, today, and forever.

You weren’t some sort of make-believe.