By Gala
Date: 16 December 2000
A Girl Like You
It had been a quiet sweet night,
a shared bottle of wine,
and man with a hollow heart
explaining why he cried
when he took his kids home
after a weekend with daddy.
I listened
murmured in all the right places,
and when it seemed a good idea,
offered a massage to ease him.
He was not my lover,
didn't think of me like that---
and the touching was innocent
at least for him.
He could never see my face
as I worked on the knots and tangles
that sad had made of his shoulders and neck.
We talked intimately,
and I felt him go easy under my hands
and suddenly he looked up at me
a broad smile on his face,
and asked me if I knew how wonderful I was,
gentle
kind
unique
a real treasure---
and then he said---
I swear to god he said these words
"How come I can't meet a girl like you?"
My face froze.
Ice lodged in my heart and throat.
A girl like me?
Twenty five years later
and my face burns with it still.
Why in the world did he need
a girl like me,
when the original was there for the taking?
But the story didn't quite end there.
Months later
when our sweet nights became few
and I looked elsewhere for what he could not offer,
and changed quite a bit
I fell in love with another man
who liked me just fine the way I was.
The fool came back
and decided that I was a girl like me after all.
He caught me with a kiss
that said that I wasn't his sister
pressed against me hard
and looked at me with raw need
for the very first time.
I looked back and told him
that I couldn't possibly
because he never could manage to love
a girl like me.
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