erm…this is probably called catch up and I hope the fine ladies who provided #November Notes don’t mind me doing so.

Song prompt: The Script, For The First Time. One of my favorite songs.

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I’m Okay

Where are we these days?

He’s lost his job

Me, I never found one

It seems like we take turns

In the unemployment line

The only time we’re together

Is asleep, him snoring, me awake

 

I never went to sleep, when he woke

He stared at me, as if seeing me for the first time

His eyes softened, reminding me of that boy

The one I met when I was sixteen

Who curled my toes, kissed my lips

Broke my cherry, convinced me love was forever

 

That boy never went far, worked in a factory

Til it closed, worked at the mill, til it closed

Now we look at each other and I don’t blame him

He’s always worked, it’s the times that’re hard.

 

I wake, look in the mirror think my face is wrinkled too soon

He appears behind me and strokes his fingertips over my skin

I kiss them. Our eyes meet in the mirror,

as if we’ve never seen each other before.

 

We talk like I don’t remember us doing, not recently

Maybe we did before, before everything seemed huge

We touch and entwine fingers like kids, our smiles bashful

Like we are learning each other again

 

We have no money, we’re living on my meager earnings

from a job I got last week, a cashier at a store,

Bread and butter, some peanut butter

No handouts, he’s too proud

But it’s okay. I’d live poor with him every day.

 

It’s not fancy or isolation, it’s not dreams of some idealized love

He and me, we’ve been together for long enough

That I know there’s no whipped cream fantasies on our agenda

It’s tears and crumbling concrete, broken windows and cold.

 

Yeah, these times are hard, but he woke this morning

Held me close, our heat invaded each other’s bodies

It’s been six years since that’s happened. He turned, kissed my jaw,

He said: I’ve missed you, hon, are you okay? I didn’t need to answer

I almost in that perfect moment wouldn’t answer, but said, “yeah, I’m okay.”

 

end 12/1/2016

S. Darlington