there are days I need to remind myself
let me wake him still sleepymade me tea
danced at our ex's wedding
cooked surprise pizzas
held me while I talked about my father
bought a silver teapot
walked me to the doctor's office
took my hand
made me tea
rumpled my hair as he walked by
brought me red roses
on Valentine's day
made me tea
hugged me on the subway station
on the way to see a play
tucked me in and kissed me goodnight
that there were all those other days
I like this one a lot.
I do too, thanks again Mary Anne.
What’s eerie to me about this poem is – I don’t know the truth. Knowing your context, I assume that the narrator has had a relatively rare bad day. But it reminds me more of times, the “beginning of the end”, when I would replay all the tender moments of a relationship, when I would go over the evidence in my head that things were real, and not know how to process the other times, the bad side, the emptiness. Because, the relationship was really awful, and the tender moments were somewhat akin to the honeymoon moments of the abuse cycle.
So I want reassurance, in the poem.
And yet – I like that you don’t provide it. Because that’s how it feels, whether it’s a bad day in a rare while or a moment of clarity amid the rubble – it feels ambiguous, a fork in the road.
It’s funny — reading your comment made me want to explain exactly what was going on with me and Kev that day. But I have a feeling it’d detract from the poem as a poem. So maybe I’ll just let y’all fill in the blanks. 🙂