No Grey Areas.

“Don’t ever lose me,” she said,
“or you’ll never find me again.”
And she smiled with such frivolity,
I didn’t take it in.
Like something I didn’t understand,
left me standing there,
Like another court jester.
Unfocused for a minute,
wounded but not yet feeling the pain.
Wondering what secrets,
lie behind your dark eyes,
what feelings, emotions,
what loyalties, what ties.

The things that were spoken,
Can it just be ended?
Friendship dissolves in argument,
the messages we both sent,
so uncaring, so permanent.
These things that were said,
the hatred we speak,
did we really deserve that,
for acting so strong,
and being so weak?

“I’ll love you forever,” she said,
“unless you lose me.”
And like something I didn’t understand,
almost as if she had it planned,
the burden of proof was mine to show.
I stood, another caught jester,
no grey areas, no touch and go,
simply black or white, yes or no,
Like something I didn’t understand.
Like a flower plaited in your hair,
Picked and waiting to wilt.
Like something I could have held in my hand
So many grains of sand.

What argument without reprise,
no chance of redemption,
no loyalties, no ties,
no more those beautiful dark eyes.
And yet, it’s open ended,
I never hated you.
But you just couldn’t listen,
thinking you knew the truth.
No way back except regret,
Those rash, harsh words made harsher yet.

And still, it’s open ended,
I never hated you.
But you just wouldn’t listen,
and thought you knew the truth.

This is the poem from 1993 that I erroneously wrote about in the previous post, the bulk of this was written in 1993 just after I’d been through an unhappy love affair. Was it a love affair or was it just lust? The young lady, she was 23, I was 34, was quite a looker (in my opinion) and I felt quite an elation knowing that she wanted to be with me, well, that’s what she said, and I wanted to be with her, and at the time, I did. She had all but moved in with me but when it came to it that fateful night when we got around to talking about “exes” it all fall apart and quite speedily, like one of SpaceX’s rapid unscheduled disassemblies.

She took the viewpoint that I ought to have nothing whatsoever to do with my ex. I held the point of view that we were people who had once been together, people who knew each other and therefore people who would give each other the time of day should we meet in the street. We were not boy and girlfriend, but we were friends.

It seemed that the two differing views that we held were mutually incompatible and therefore our relationship couldn’t continue. There were tears, there was smashed glass and a scratched LP, there was shouting in the street. It wasn’t pretty, big or clever. We parted ways and animosity was rife.

Anyway, after a while I felt compelled to commit my thoughts about the whole affair, or some of it at least, to paper and I began to write but I didn’t get past jotting down an outline. I wanted to “write it out” but it was still painful, and, in the end, I abandoned it.

Those jottings came to light again last November (see “Spaces”) and since then I have been cogitating on whether or not to finish the piece. Anyway, it was a long time ago now and those scars have well and truly healed, so here it is.

I didn’t even have a title for this poem, I chose “No Grey Areas” on the spur of the moment picking it out of verse three and thinking back it seems quite apposite, as at the time that certainly seemed to be point of view of the young lady involved. Me? I’m full of grey areas, for me very few things are clear-cut black and white, that’s just how I see the universe at large.

If you read the previous post, you will notice that in this poem I have recycled various parts of “Like Something I didn’t understand” thinking no doubt back then that it wouldn’t see the light of day as a complete poem, so I may as well use bits in another one, and I was very nearly right.