Twosome

A Poem by Zinn

A short poem on the nature of relationships and commitment

There’s a musical magical moment when you know.
Connection can spark from the most unforeseen places.
Whether it’s first eye contact.
First touch.
First Kiss.
Or drunkenly banging the first night you meet.

In the specific case which bred this beautiful bewildered embellishment
I knew before we’d ever met.
When I heard her name from a friend on the phone.

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take”

And without my own consent I took the plunge.
Those first few weeks of ecstatic addiction are unparalleled.
When a certain someone lodges themselves deep within your thoughts
and you are unwilling or incapable of removing them.

I’m told once you wrote letters, now we just text.
Once you courted, wined and dined for months or years and waited until marriage to consummate the fate.
Now all it takes is a six pack and a bottle of cheap wine.

So we’ve streamlined the process.
Not unreasonable for the ADHD generation.
Some say we’re destroying and replacing ethical behavior with…whatever it is we do now.
And they aren’t wrong.
Although your classical ethical paradigm is certainly subjective and more than minorly flawed.

Return to the starstruck fortnight.
Before talk about relationships or commitment.
When it’s simply fun for the sake of being fun and you find yourself in each other’s arms because there isn’t anywhere else in the world you’d rather go.

Before you start poking around in dirty dark closets full of enough corpses to overflow a tomb.
Because trust me, they are there.
You’ll find them if you stick around.

And that’s what I’ve never been good at.
I’ll do it
I’m sure you have too
but it’s not my…forte.

When you aren’t careful you make a commitment out of complacency
when it feels easy and safe and comfortable.
That’s a red flag.
A time to rethink.
Ask yourself, what am I doing here and why?

Yet it’s impossible to ignore the appeal of another body next to you at night
when nothing else matters and you’re entranced in a state of blissful limbo.

But it can’t last.
And that’s the crux of the issue.
The impermanence of a good thing.
How relationships mutate and evolve.
How lives can suddenly intertwine
and how what came from nothing can again be nothing in the blink of an eye.
Even as the roots begin to grow.
Until you gaze in the mirror and realize those shaky uncertain eyes are as fleeting and lost as the ones within your mind when you lay awake at night.

I’ve never been good at commitment.
I’ve never known what I want.
I’ve never felt the need to make a choice
when the absence of a choice becomes the choice itself.
And therein lays a fault.
Perhaps it’s a problem you share
or perhaps you are a go-getter
of whom I deeply envy
restless with status quo and ever evolving.

Comfort is uncomfortable.
..to some.

Twosome.

To someone I barely know but feel like I’ve known for years.

To somehow escape my minds iron bars, protecting dangerous emotions deep within.

To somewhere sacred, with no lies or tears, where it’s safe to embrace your inner fears.

To someone who sees and feels the sin but continues to let me in.