We shared a dead boyfriend.
In the past,
not in a meal.

There were no napkins
Or silverware adorning
our table.

Just a bucket of memories
and tethers that bonded
weird souls together.

I kissed him,
sweet thirteen,
before we met.
At fifteen, he was hers.

By eighteen, he was gone.

A drunken night of ropes
and games that had his name
written all over it.

We grieved, and we remember...

But

We...we remain.

Ties that bind baby girl...
ties that bind.

It is a picturesque town.
Gone back a hundred years or more. 
A post-carded vision where the
cobbled walk circles
the park square where maples bend
and huddle round children
that have long gone away.
Twas a colony of like-minded folk in its day.
Now surrounded by farm fields that house
towering armed sentinels
catching the breeze in rotation.
This was our destination
as we strolled onto the grassy green square.
All of the pickers were there,
and a fiddler to boot.
In the gazebo, behind the haystacks,
sat a shadowy suit of leering looks
propped between guitar strings
and black leather cases.
From a distance,
we mistook his fatigue for voyeurism.
Shame on the strangers in town.
That shadow had forgotten more about pickin
and pluckin than we could
ever hope to know.
And when he did finally lay his gnarled
fingers on his ole friend,
that banjo filled our souls
with tunes long forgotten.
In that picturesque town where the maples
bend down to greet such sweet music.

He was gone before the
morning shine.
Never had she felt
so cheated.
Not by the man who
had shared her bed,
but by the ironic
gut-wrenching pain
of life.
Oh, but she was young.
Twenty-five was alive
and danced with
flailing limbs full of
magic and unpredictability.
It's what nudged her along.
Her music was vibrant,
and filled her days with song
about everything she
longed for.
Mostly his company,
conversation,
nakedness and dancing
in the moonlight
with full acceptance...
But the westward winds
ushered him away,
and scratched her melodies
till there was nothing but
a boring monotonous hum.
Many days she cried,
for the ripping and tearing
was far too much to bare.
Unpredictability was unfair,
a lesson etched upon
her soul as she struggled
with letting go of the
most intense love she had
ever known,
for the man who
was gone before the
morning shine...
when she was
but a mere twenty-five.

He surveys the girl,
and sops up every
vivacious feminine inch
like a mop.
But he does not speak.
He taps his toes
and shuffles his feet...
He leans in her direction.
The curve of his lips is
in direct reflection
of the verbiage he'd ought
to say.
But he utters not a word.
His sounds remain silent.
Echoed echoes in a
bomb shelter hallway
that stifle his every breath.

You crawl in through
the woodwork...
like a sentinel storm
creeping over the fields.
Raining down memories,
pounding flora and fauna
into muddled puddles
of yesterday's meals.
They've already been chewed.
Regurgitated morsels
that once appealed
to a youthful appetite
are not the same...
the second time around.
Not when years passed,
like chuck wagons
on a dusty cobbled road.
And the admission fee,
the one you never paid...
the one you threw away...
the one you tossed into
the breeze for someone else
to find?
It
is
dangling
on
a
slack
line
awaiting its remorse.

He whispered her name
as though it were a secret;
unknown and untold.
He whispered her name,
breathy and barely audible,
but it still sequestered
a childlike squeal
from her lips
that echoed through
the threads of her
body.

Why does he sound
so urgent?
It is merely words
he is reading.
Fists clenched,
teeth grinding
ego winding up for
the home run
that had begun
(in his head) years ago.
Does he know?
His ass crack still
flaps in the breeze,
just like you and me,
when nature calls
our duty home.
He gives a disclaimer,
hands out a waiver
and immediately calls
attention to the clause
that states:
NO SWEARING.
These F bombs,
that I am (disrespectfully)
wearing are not to
cross the line.
Linguistic segregation
to keep the literary swine
at bay.
"BULLSHIT"
I politely say.
Now, pass the salt and pepper.
Pass the hat,
and gently fuck the haters.
I'll not sit in the back
of the literary bus.
No muss no fuss
and I'll speak these
words where I please.
Thank you very much.