Look away, my father's home, she'd say.
I looked down and away.
I didn't know what that meant then, but I do now.
Like the floor crumbles beneath my feet, my heart hangs from this noose in crowded rooms — where ever she is, there my heart is around her neck like a charm or a fucking expensive wrist chain. I'd ask for it back, but I'm too shy.
A breeze pulls her auburn hair from side-to-side in tangles, keeping me from falling apart at the seams.
If I could change your frown upright, would she stay?
I shrug, asking myself in the mirror.
She slams the door, wearing the same frown she wore yesterday and the week before that, and the week I found her in bed, sleeping with her girlfriend.
She says she couldn't feel me so far away.
She told me to look away. Her father's home.
Look away. Pretend we don't know each other.
Look, I tell her father. I want to marry your daughter,
And you're not stopping me.
All you had to do was ask, dude, he says.
I wanted you to ask my dad, first, she says and smiles.
YOU ARE READING
The Lonely Position of Neutral
PoetryBen's throat cancer has returned. Living a lonely life, he found a woman he loves but finds out she's been unfaithful. Ben starts to think the lonely position of neutral isn't that bad. He writes poems and dialogue narratives. Will Ben survive cance...
