Cold Service

If there is one thing I am sure of

It’s that I can make you love me

I don't have the world on offer

But I can afford the moon on promise

Most importantly:

I am determined to make you mine I will ask about your favorite authors

I will encourage a poetry slam-like reading

Of your thesis

We will laugh

We will touch

And I will make you breakfast in bed

Should I ever forget an important date

I will give you a new day to remember

After you fall

We will pledge under an arbor-stomp a glass - jump a broom - OPA! those plates

We will dance through the night

To whatever approximates a fairytale these days

I will gladly pick up each errant sock

I will tuck you in a blanket when you doze off

To infomercials

When you are ill, I will not tire

I will not faint

Not once will you hear me complain –Not ever

Our children

My eyes – your hair – and my uncle’s nose, respectively

They will be beautiful, ambitious, and kind-hearted

Ours will be the children to change the world

And Oh! You will love me!

For such I designed

Should you forget, I will remind

I was determined to make you mine

I will observe you fold into wrinkles

Fade into gray

With a half-smile – a remembrance

We will retire and fill our lives

With little else but us

Much like our courting days

So many decades ago

Until strangers cannot tell us apart

When death makes its final play

I will hold your withered hand with

As much strength as my old bones will allow

I will incline

To your tufted ear…Softly whisper…“I never loved you.”

I will press a pillow to your hateful face

And exorcise my demons

From those years before you knew my name

When I was collateral damage in your aspirations

I am Vengeance