TAKEOUT AND FIRE ALARMS
As a young girl, I was under the impression
that love arrived at our windows with grace.
I was under the impression
that some guy with a muscled chest
and a kind of ridiculous hero complex
would arrive at my doorstep and sweep me off my feet.
I was told that love brought red roses,
expensive wine and candlelit dinners.
And that I’d be perfect, and he’d be perfect,
and it would be as though we were star-crossed.
But roses always came with thorns and
dinners came with bills I couldn’t pay.
So in the end I just thought I had no other half.
It landed on me like a suckerpunch
but like a bruise, it ached slowly in a torturous way.
I had tripped on a stool in the local cafe
because this idiot had bumped into me;
he deserved that large, brown stain on his shirt.
I assure you, there was definitely no grace.
Of course, that dissolved into bickering
and I finally agreed that, okay fine I owe you a shirt.
Somehow, we became friends quickly after,
and there was the potential for more.
There were no restaurant reservations,
Or red roses, expensive wine and candlelit dinners.
It would be a nice date at his house on a clear night
while the moon shone brightly outside.
I expected stilted conversation, shy looks,
the occasional brush of fingertips.
That was, until he burnt the chicken fajitas
while trying to show me something impressive
and paying attention to another pan.
He used a wet blanket to smother the chicken and
in the rush he dumped all of the salad on the floor.
His elbow was covered in soy sauce,
his crisp, white shirt smudged like raven’s feathers.
I’d stood, frozen, as I watched this idiot
clamber onto the counter to turn off the fire alarm
while the stove was still smoking.
Embarrassment bled from his neck to his collar
and he asked me if I wanted to leave.
I shrugged. “Nah. How about Chinese?”
We spent the night sprawled on the couch
eating takeout while the fire alarm let out
the occasional, miffed beep.
And love, well. It really had no grace after all.
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- 02/14/18