spare
Oh, children, do not look at your parents eating spaghetti bolognese at the end of a rote work-week, do not let that form the indelible imagery of your progenitors. We were young and even glamorous, for a time, our eyes wider to the past than to the future. Our hair was tousled by uncertainty and potential, not ragged weariness. We still remember more than you could ever dream.
I wanted to teach you more about heartbreak, but I never picked the right technique. You know what my own upbringing was, at least through the saccharine filter of parent-child discourse. I was in love, once, early, around your age, and when she moved on, she did so without telling me, so that I lingered unsteadily, following her around our small town, until the signals came into focus. Oh, I thought, this is how you say goodbye. You don't. You simply will a separation into being. In fact, this is what I said, looking at her upon the realization. 'Oh,' I said. 'Oh.'
Would that I had gone home and cried. This would be normal. But growing up, goodbyes were the currency which we used to pay the rent. They were spent, and could be re-earned to fill our meager accounts. So that when it was my time to be the landlord, to evict the unwanted tenant, I was confused by the resistance. Why anyone would cry for me, or plead with me to stay, seemed alien. When it happened, I thought, 'Oh.'
Later, when I wanted to beg, I couldn't. It wouldn't have worked, or maybe it would have, but I never had it in me to try. I am so much better at running, which is so hard to do on your knees. I can't tell you, I would think, or you would run first. If I told you, it would be a deluge, and bibles have been written about smaller floods.
This is sometimes what I am pondering, at the end of a work-week, eating too slowly and too loudly, my tie un-tied, my shirt un-tucked. It is because I saw her doppelganger, and I couldn't talk to this likeness, but even had I tried, I know the words I would have used, and they would have been sparse.
I wanted to teach you more about heartbreak, but I never picked the right technique. You know what my own upbringing was, at least through the saccharine filter of parent-child discourse. I was in love, once, early, around your age, and when she moved on, she did so without telling me, so that I lingered unsteadily, following her around our small town, until the signals came into focus. Oh, I thought, this is how you say goodbye. You don't. You simply will a separation into being. In fact, this is what I said, looking at her upon the realization. 'Oh,' I said. 'Oh.'
Would that I had gone home and cried. This would be normal. But growing up, goodbyes were the currency which we used to pay the rent. They were spent, and could be re-earned to fill our meager accounts. So that when it was my time to be the landlord, to evict the unwanted tenant, I was confused by the resistance. Why anyone would cry for me, or plead with me to stay, seemed alien. When it happened, I thought, 'Oh.'
Later, when I wanted to beg, I couldn't. It wouldn't have worked, or maybe it would have, but I never had it in me to try. I am so much better at running, which is so hard to do on your knees. I can't tell you, I would think, or you would run first. If I told you, it would be a deluge, and bibles have been written about smaller floods.
This is sometimes what I am pondering, at the end of a work-week, eating too slowly and too loudly, my tie un-tied, my shirt un-tucked. It is because I saw her doppelganger, and I couldn't talk to this likeness, but even had I tried, I know the words I would have used, and they would have been sparse.
Comments
That's pretty much it so far.
Which is to say, I'll have some of that spaghetti, please -- hold the mushrooms.