A Poem About What Really Happened

So he let go of the woman he loved. After all,

she would’ve only been lost in the muddled life

he’d made for himself. Maybe even hurt.

That was not something he wanted for her.

None of it was, really.

Wait, though, that isn’t how it happened.

He never let the woman go. On the dark wooden steps

he offered her the idea of a tinderbox

and a match, then a circus beneath a Big Top

where he balanced the universe

on a tightrope made of shoestrings and bones.

He told her a bedtime story about places

like ever after and far away. Then he built four walls

out of promises and tape where she curled up

atop his words and wept. Where then she dreamed

of something suspended over water—

A thousand origami cranes in cobalt and chartreuse,

the tiniest paper airplane, tall bridges beckoning

toward an island made of glass.

From somewhere distant, she dreamed of going.

And he followed.

Wait, though. That isn’t how it happened.                                                              printable