By Anonymous
Date: 25 July 1999

Unmended Ways

You call me a loser
My life broken down and covered 
With unmet needs
Bitterness and sadness overgrowing my heart
Because good things never seem to happen to me.
You say that by neglect I've allowed
My life to become cluttered
And smothered by a surfeit of words
And a scarcity of deeds
And you tell me it never had to be this way
If only I had attended to my own yard
Day after day
Like the neighbor I watch with envy
Who carefully nurtured 
And weeded every little seed until
They became flowers or well pruned trees 
Laden with fruit.
You say I could have even had wildflowers in my own heart
If I had only been able to see 
The wild beauty that dwells in even in the weeds
But now you tell me my misery is deserved
Because that's my payback 
For failing to plan or take heed in my love life
To the little things that could have made it 
The paradise that we both long for and need.
Well dear mate, 
Did you ever stop to think
What our neighbor and his beaufiful wife talk about
When she comes out at three oclock to serve him tea?
At that hour they surely share (did you hear it?) share their dreams!
Maybe plan a romance
Caught up in the the wind,
In a hot air balloon
Taking flights over a rocky shoreline 
By the sea
Hopes and dreams, my dear: 
Those things you never shared with me
All you offered me were latex lips 
And  nagging 
To get your own way
And far from being good to me
You have reduced my love life
To a latex glove
And a jar of Jurgen's lotion.
And with our first words in the morning
You start in blaming me right off, first thing, every day 
And aren't happy until you have had final say.
So sure. With your constant fault finding
I long to flee to our neighbor's yard.
Yes, I do envy the happiness they share,
And sometimes in my desperation to break free
I go on the internet 
And fly into a latex lovesong fantasy
And make poems about how I wish I could be free  
In fact, darling,  I would do anything, you see,
Not to have to live with thee at all.
Truce?