“If I Live to See the Day”

 (some more of my selected poetry & prose from an old journal, circa 2010’s, NYC)

“Okay, whatever,” is what I tell her.

“What do you think?” she snaps.

“I don’t ‘think’ anything.”

“But you just said it, so you must think something,” she demands.

This just-mist and thicket, I wish it meant something (to them).

When we used to be, a part of that far away, I think.

Oh, don’t be so proud of yourself.

Let’s part ways, then start over-when it’s convenient.

“I’m tired of thinking,” she insists, “about this, about everything between you and me.”

“Well, don’t then, it’s not like-”

“There you go, always with the answers,” she interrupts, with a turn of her head.

“I like the way I think I look,” I remand.

So, we run past the overgrowth, fallen leaves at the sound of your buckling galoshes.

Take one, leave it there, yeah-right over there, I mean it.

And, place it where, exactly, so just tell me that?

If I live to see the motherfucking day, alright.

“Just like that?” I ask, right up until that moment (when).

“Watch me,” she barks, “just watch.”

“I think this is too much.”

“Fuck you, alright, you and the horse you rode in on.”

Though our dearth sits harbor, sand like glass shards of granulated mirror.

An overcast alabaster, smoking thin little things-charring your lungs’ exterior.

We’re starting to get somewhere-no you said it first, well-I didn’t mean it like that.  

Yeah, alright seriously, I’m done listening-you’re acting like you need a mother.

“Just leave me alone,” of springlong with emotion, out the meadowlark.

“Give me a second, I’ve already asked like a thousand times.”

I tell her, “we don’t belong.”

She repeats my name, saying, “maybe, it’s everyone else who’s wrong.”

Whatever, fine we’ll-yeah, somewhere, only it’s...but, this just keeps on happening.

Right, the way we used to even-hey, you’re full of it like, no, please just stay and listen.

You say, “you’re jealous that I’m everything you’ll never be.”

So until we meet back there, at our ‘special place’, if we live long enough, that is.

© 2022, A. M. D’Angelo