Rainbows and Unicorns

And with a jolt, I realise just how old I am. I am too old to be anyone’s First.

With the pace of life being what it is, men all over have fallen in love at least once, twice, 5 times already. With her eyes, with her hands, with her words that taste like moonlight on a starry day. The past is beautiful, it would be wrong to deny it. And I don’t deny mine.

So, I’m too old to be anyone’s first.
I will be the one with Those eyes.
The one with Those hands.
The one with the words. Some words.

Sometimes, I’ll be the rebound girl.

And I’m ok with that.  But he won’t be.

The first, as few or many know, is sacred. Veiled. Perfect in ways that defy logic and hindsight. It is constructive in ways so precious that whole chapters are written in autobiographies about the First. The timeless. The effortless. The immortal.

Anything after that is just After That.

I, with my idiosyncrasies synchronised to go off at the worst of moments, will never match up.
Once you’ve had an immortal, there is no beauty in sad poetry, far-off gazes, and off-tune music. There is no beauty in jagged ends. There is no beauty in walls.

There is time, and there is patience, and with the pace of life being what it is, I’m just too old.

Denny Crane’s Mad Cow Disease

Like everyone else, He started out with blank paper.

And then he opened his eyes.

To a world of memories, waiting to happen.

The firsts

The lasts

The in-betweens

From late-night journal entries

To poems on cocktail napkins

He wrote them all.

His words were simple, concrete, formidable;

Memorable. Or so she always thought.

She did think she could remember every word he ever wrote. Said. Or danced.

It’s hard to forget your own name.

---

But not for him.

Where once he wore his heart on sleeve

Now he wears his home address

He’s prone to losing his way

As his words are, on their way from his mind to his mouth

The stray papers on his night-stand no longer contain limericks

But mimick his condition in an array of confusion

This and that after breakfast, lunch and dinner, replace his favourite desserts

The doctors’ way of saying “Get Well Soon”

But he’s not sick.

Just amazed.

That would explain his wide-eyed wonder, his everyday bewilderment

At waking up in his own bed every afternoon.

His words are muddled, abstract, feeble

Hard to forget. Or she thinks.

The late-night journal entries

The poems on cocktail napkins

Mere imitations,  that she’s preserved so carefully, mock her plight

Her inability to save their author.

The firsts will be forgotten

The lasts will be mourned

But the in-between

This state of limbo

She will bear alone. All alone. All alone with him.

She’s no longer “My dear”

He now likes to address her as a Blank Stare.

And she, stares right back.

Trying to find the once present love, peace and light

But coming up without even recognition.

Without even recognition.

---

I started out with blank paper.

I don’t want to end with one.