In leu of a long blog post this week, I have scavenged through my writings over the past year or so and have found a fictional poem I wrote for a class my Freshman year. Enjoy! Oh, and happy 4th to those in the USA!

Written 9/23/17; Posted 7/5/18

The moment I saw him,

my life flashed before my eyes.

He would approach me with a drink and

I would try to be calm and collected

as my heart would throb inside my chest.

We would engage in conversation,

spitting wit back and forth like

brutalions ready for battle,

Except, this would be anything but war.

Our relationship would consist of

running back to the car for just one last

kiss, waking up in the morning

just to watch the sunrise over the

hillside at his parent’s house—

where we would stay for the weekend—,

walking to work with coffee in one hand

and each other in the other,

him eating the last bite of my cake

but smiling with crumbs still in his mouth

in such a way I had to forgive him,

loosing ourselves in not only the physical

but the emotional conversations we would

have late at night under the covers.

And the day he would ask me to marry

him would be the happiest day of

my life, at least until the actual wedding.

He would get down on one knee at our favorite

park—the one where we had our

first kiss and our first fight

where we fed a squirrel with our

left over sandwich bread after

a picnic—and declare his love to me

and I would try my best not to cry,

but as I whisper yes, the tears

of joy would drip onto the dried-up leaves.

I would invite everyone to the wedding—

cousins, friends, friends of friends,

people who went to high school, middle school,

elementary school with me—

and the people I really care about would come.

Our honeymoon would be amazing.

I would discover parts of him I never knew before.

The first night, we would spend certifying our marriage

with late night talks about our childhood

and our dreams like that one time he

cried over a turtle he accidentally ran over

with his brand new white Ford truck—

he would even shed a tear now, as my husband.

We would have kids, either biological or adopted,

probably both, about a year after our marriage.

Everyone would say we’re too young, but

a month or two into it, when we finally

understand the ropes or raising another human,

they would nod in approval as the children

grow and grow out of diapers and into college then

off to adulthood as they join us in the real world

of paychecks and careers and bills.

When our kids come to visit for Thanksgiving

and Christmas, they would bring their children and

we would play peek-a-boo and spoil the kids rotten

just like our parents did with our kids.

We be the oldest generation, the wise ones.

And he would sit our grandchildren down on his

lap and I would rest my head on his shoulder,

gently letting my eyelids drift down over my vision

as I play with his hair and listen to the story of how

we fell in love that one time at that one party

eons ago yet I am still discovering more and more

about him every single day half a century later.

And I see him grab a drink from the

bar and glance my way. I prepare,

take a deep breath, and wait for

him to come start the witty conversation

as I attempt to seem calm and

collected. As he walks over, my heart throbs

and I smile at him until he has passed me

and has handed the drink to another girl.

They kiss.

And the love of my life walks out the door

with all the memories of what could have been.