Love Poem 37

When I was still figuring out

how to be a man,

I fell so far in the hole

I never thought I would make it out.

She had short, sharp hair and a

shorter, sharper attitude.

I said one of the first that came to my mind and

I thought it was hilarious and

she stared right through me.

I thought I was hilarious and

I still think I am hilarious

but I have been alone for so much of my life

that I am not sure I am a good judge.

I have never forgotten that look and

I will never forget that look,

and I will never forget how

it set me on my heels.

I spent months trying to make sense of it,

trying to figure out where I went wrong.

I thought the look meant one thing and

it meant another thing and

I was playing catch-up.

I was caught up trying to be someone else.

I tried to tailor myself from the inside out,

tried to find a way to make myself work with someone

it wouldn’t work with.

Lo and behold,

when it came time to admit the relationship

wasn’t working,

I could not accept it and I spent months trying

to dig myself out of the whole mess in which

I’d buried myself.

I never understood it because I wouldn’t let myself understand.

Now,

years later,

I understand better and while I don’t think I

learned as much as I should have,

I know more than I did before.

There are times where I want to hold water and

I need to know how it will be as it will be,

but I haven’t yet learned

how to just let it happen.