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Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. Leonard Cohen

Friday, April 25, 2014

Lessons on Lying

I was never really his friend
I hated his orangy hair and luminous pale face
his omnipresent cardigan,
the color of burnt cinnamon
But he came from a good family
I mean, from money
and I was not at all rich or romantic or polished
so I pretended to love him
The sex and all?
How I hated that stuff!
Kissing his spongy lips
was like diving face first into a container of raspberry Jello
But my philosophy was
to do whatever it took to escape
Little did I know
that he was waiting to escape too
and he did-
from his family
and from the dark alley of my dissemblance
When you least expect it,
someone grows up
and gets it right
I doubt if I ever will.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Next Stop Wonderland, in which we are asked to randomly open 3 books 3 times each, pick words that catch our attention, and use them in a poem. My 3 books were The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Catcher In the Rye, and the Orchid Thief.

3 comments:

hedgewitch said...

I am going to come back and do this prompt, I swear, if only because everyone who has written for it has done such a great job. Here you really give us almost a short story,LM, it's so rich in character, but the ending is pure poetry, designed to hit us where we live. Great job on your choices, and on building this from them.

Helena said...

Absolutely cracking! A re-read piece, indeed!

Buddah Moskowitz said...

Great narrative here. Crackling is a good adjective for this. A great read.