I remember, when we first met
I was shining
I had no armour
It was night.
You pretended the fuse had blown and showed me a cavern of tea-lights
You’d probably bought them from the pound shop in a multi-pack
You cooked sub-standard stir-fry
I fell in love with plates that didn’t match
And then fell in love with you.
The city was ours
Drunk and dirty
I bought you a curry on my credit card
You, a dress for me, on yours.
Then you got normal, and I fell out of love
Instead of painstakingly bad homemade risotto
And extensive sex sessions
I got half your sweet and sour chicken as you dozed off in front of Friends
The one where someone does something stupid
But it all turns out fine
Instead of asking me for every detail about my life so far
You put on a documentary about sting-rays
As I chain-smoked and dreamt about going to Prague on my own
You started leaving socks on my floor
I became a cliché: he never buys me flowers anymore
Selfish and brooding I left you and your sting-rays
And realised, sitting at home
That I was a twat.
Flowers die
And who wants to go to Prague alone?
Comments
Ewan | February 21, 2008 - 06:50
I liked this dissection of the transition from romantic to 'companion-love' and then break-up: what does it for me is the quirky detail:
'from the pound shop in a multi-pack'
'Friends
The one where someone does something stupid
But it all turns out fine'
It was very clever to put 'leaving socks on my floor' next to 'I became a cliché, but cleverer still to lift the former out of pure cliché by simply using 'my'.
Well done.
chelseyflood | February 21, 2008 - 09:23
Good work Leonie. Nuggets of truth in here gave me mild palpitations.
"And then fell in love with you
Cause you’d fallen in love with me."
I didn't read this as ending in a split, though.
I don't think the ending is quite as strong as the rest. Maybe it's because it ends on a question, so the final 'note' (correct poetry terminology ahem) goes up.
What do you think?
Just a thought from a novice.
edmund allos | February 23, 2008 - 09:27
I thought that was a really great resolution...the way it returns to self-realisation is heartfelt, true expression...excellent writing, and you're not a twat: normality is corrosive!
span | March 10, 2008 - 23:08
ace
anipani | April 4, 2008 - 17:12
you're good at this , keep writing .
HaiAnh | April 19, 2008 - 21:20
Very truthful, I liked the details, as well as the meaning. x