The End of Summer

September 3, 2013:  I’ve met someone

I met someone who was beautiful.

Who once sent me strange stories

excerpts of  writing about chaos

and for a very brief moment, perhaps a minute

I thought she would never run away

but I am an old fool, believed her name correct

and I know inside these are the last summers I will ever have like this

and her gypsy heart was full of both little deceptions

and youth's larger departures.

I met someone who was a kindred spirit.

Or so I’d thought

for she told me,

I have watched the way you walk

and for months we laughed

and I admired her classical beauty

but she was a Liar inside and led a secret life and part of me knew

from the moment I kissed her she would betray me deeply

and so my love was often broken, failed

and I was left ashamed

the Fiction and true Cruelness of her character,

well-honed in the service of outcome,

and the cowardice and the erratic frailty of her own heart

made her believe it was necessary to shatter mine.

I met someone, again, who was once an old love.

And I tried all of my tricks and some days missed her special one

and there was a moment or two

of pure possibility but I watched again and again

as my actions were misread

and my complications moved around me

and the sun set

and the autumn approached

on any opportunity I probably ever had.

I met someone with a golden heart,

past all these selfish games

who admired and cared and loved me well

As I should be, and would never turn her back

for her own convenience

and we met and drank cocktails

and walked in that park

in those days of all my other rejections

But she is half a world away

and there are moments

I fear like before in other times what that someday might mean.

And so at the summers end

I gave something up.

And it was then that I met

Someone

in a mirror, finally,

truthfully

and was ready to meet again.

September 3, 2013

© J. Popowich