I broke up with my
High school girl friend.
I don’t know why.
Our time together just got
More and more uncomfortable.
My parents got remarried
A month or two later
After three years of being divorced.
They had a hippie wedding
Out in the woods
At the Unitarian Fellowship hall.
My mother made a flowered shirt for my father.
She wore a peasant dress.
She had flowers in her hair.
They read the vows they had written
And we danced in a circle around them.
My old girl friend was there.
I danced with her.
We drank wine.
We smoked pot.
The air was full of the promise of sex.
For that is the nature of wedding parties.
My ex gave me a ride home and asked
As we sat in the car outside my house
if we could go back to being a couple.
I told her no.
What ever had been wrong
Between us was still wrong.
It seemed better be alone
Than to settle for something
That felt bad.
My parents hadn’t been that smart
They got divorced again five years later.
A contest entry
- Weddings & funerals. Graduations & divorces. Endings. by ea.
700 points, ended November 30, 2009, 4 entries
Silver trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Comments
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I love the harsh reality of human relationships, and I love the way you express it. Hurrah for the truth, you never fail to impress me >;]
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I like the piece has a nice roll to it
and if the reader’s the right age
and lived through the good old days
it becomes even more enjoyable
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Good take on the prompt, an ending that took place between two other endings. It didn't work out but it sounds like it was at least a noble attempt to save a family on your parents' part and a nice hippy love fest that reflects a generation's tastes (late 60s, early 70s).
After all, my erstwhile dear,
My no longer cherished,
Need we say it was not love,
Just because it perished?
from "Passer Mortuus Est", by Edna St. Vincent Millay
I think it is youth's prerogative to move on, you have nothing to lose and only possibilities ahead of you, so maybe easier to be "smart" and obey your instincts about someone. I don't know how people bear settling for something that doesn't feel right though lord knows it happens all the time and people do make the best and worst of it, both.
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