I was shopping for fruit today and thought of you
The bananas were not ripe
The bunches were to big
And
I didn’t have the heart to break them in two
As I passed
The blueberries sneered
The oranges just sat there and judged me
Spreading rumors between them
Casting aspersions about
My dilemma
My incompetence
how I lost myself to you
.
so I walked
round and round the market
with the sunday soccermom shoppers
avoiding their glances
their coupons
their innate ability to see inside a man
.
I didn’t realize the reason I wandered
The reason why my eyes filled with tears
The reason that glued me to the freshly
Waxed
Green tiled floor
.
That is
until I noticed the faint sound of music
making it’s way through the squeaky wheels and the snaps of plastic bags
pushing past the babies reaching for things they knew they couldn’t have
making it’s way to my ears
prying them open with the long soft finger from the molody
.
It was you
The memory of you
Coming through the watered down remix
of the Bill Withers song piped through the musak
spreading out and
about the meats and coldcuts
Disguising the melody just enough to hide the heartache
The soulbreak
The ribbon of us that we wove around every lovesong on the radio
Neatly tied to bind us to them
Never letting the needle slide to the end of the melody
Holding us a prisoner of the meaning in the lyrics
I stood in the market and I felt the ribbon begin
to loosen
coming undone in shades of indigo
And then
The strangest thing happened
I felt the shudder of shoulders as the crowd gathered around me
Leaving their baskets
Their groceries and carts
All of the bodies within earshot
Grabbing the hands of those around them
Whistling and dancing to their own unwoven thread
Tugging on the soft silk ends in their minds
Remembering the ribbons that once wrapped the lovesong between them
And those they loved
.
I stood in the center
And softly sang along
.
barely noticing that
The grocery clerks were weeping with me
Forgetting their duties
Abandoning registers and fleeing to my side
Whirling in circles
Creating a vacuum coming from the loss of you
The windstorm that followed
Pulled the vegetables up and off the counters
Lifting them up to the ceiling above
Making them sweat and weep and stew
Because they knew
They knew the story of us two
Hearing your contempt as the verse met the chorus
Remembering the reason why loves great question
Remained unanswered
Hiding itself in a thousand different occasions
but
The canned meat knew
The jars of paul newmans spaghettisauce too
They rolled off the shelves and onto the floor
Up the stainless steel walls
Crashing their 57 herbs and special seasonings against the ceiling
Breaking through
Creating a way for me to see the
Reason why there is no more me and you
.
forcing the sky open above me
finding loves great answer within my chest
exposing the finite space where you made your way into my heart
splitting the soul inside my body
evicting the parts of you I held on to
throwing out the lump of you still hiding
finally
exploding what we had, and what we will never be
launching out and up to perfect rhythm to the musak melody
Returning the stars that once were yours
Alone and no one else’s
leaving what was left of myself
My heart
My chest,
the miles of veins that carried you through me
My fear of never loving again
.
And
finally hope
Came waltzing through the front door
Twirling past isle 5
Tip-toeing along the strawberry baskets and whispered to me
The love song i have held forever
Not yours, not ours, but
Mine
Mending our hearts
Cleaning the tiles
Closing the ceiling
Returning hope to the places it belongs
Staying among us
Until we knew
How very important the other side of love should be
The side that ends
The side that still sings the same song out to the universe
The song that is ours to give
Or ours to keep.
Forever playing the melody that is me
And I realize tonight as I write this
That I have not loved in vain
I have only fought in spite of it.
And I wish upon every star returning to me
That you have found your song with someone else.
And that we remember no matter, however faint, it gets woven into the people we attach it to
It always
And
Forever
Remains
The song we sing ourselves.
michaelxavier
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