Great Expectations

Named after the Gaslight song, inspired by my girlfriend and the line, "I saw tail lights last night, in a dream about my first wife, everybody leaves and I'd expect as much from you."

It's a strange thing to say,

but she felt like my first wife.

A deep loving marriage,

following a hail-mary wedding.

We were both aware of the inevitability

of it all.

We would end, flame out, grow up, move on,

leave.

So why stay in the first place.

I stayed in the fireside

of her heart, and she

in the cheap motel of mine.

I was often convinced that she hated me,

a byproduct of knowing myself

far too well.

Perhaps leaving was our only reason to stay.

We were born to leave,

like they left us.

When I was a tiny boy,

and every time things got hard since,

Mama used to say

"Life is a circle,

and as bad as things get

one day they'll be just as good."

I feel like our future is set.

The day I kissed her

I signed the divorce papers,

and my death warrant.

So why do I stay,

love was never a good enough reason

for my parents,

or hers.

But her hand in mine,

or run 'cross my back,

or on my oft times well forested cheek,

tells a different story.

Mornings waking, naked

in each other's arms.

Dinners cooked together,

music, movies, books,

a synesthetic whirl

of memories shared.

These things give me hope.

She has read my book,

dog-eared pages,

written in my margins,

with the messy scrawl that I adore.

She never skimmed or skipped a page.

That is love.

She is a dense volume,

re-bound in a cover

much younger than the pages it hides.

She is both butterfly 

and the branch on which it sits.

Metamorphosis and photosynthesis.

I browse the litany

of her prose.

Grinning like the moon at similes,

an open wound for tragic metaphor,

Scouring for typos that only she

would catch.

We know each other's stories.

And though we never wore a ring

that is marriage enough for me.

Birth is the past,

death is the future.

The present exists as only 

love or pain.

I would rather marry

my heart,

knowing that divorce awaits.

Than wait idly for death.

By: Torrin A Greathouse

Reviews

[Emily B]

i came and read this one day, can't even imagine why i didn't leave a comment

it is nice to meet you, lovely to read you