The Story I Would Never Tell
This is the story I told myself I would never tell, no matter what. You’re so young, so very young and sweet and trusting. You cry at the thought of us not spending our lives together. You’re searching for a home because you don’t feel like you have one, not that house on the hill and not that place across the tracks. And I’m stopping by your work at night, after you close the store, and the streets are wet under the lights and the parking lot is dark but we’re together, alone, for just one moment.
And there’s the part where I follow you home in that blizzard, and your mom thinks maybe I’m an okay guy because I just want you to be safe. I’m watching the snow fall thick across my windshield but as long as I can see you, you’ll be okay. And I’ll be okay. Now it’s summer and we’re going to spend every day together, and we do, me chasing you through the park, you reading my silly poetry out loud, us talking in my folks’ sun-filled living room until you’re asleep on the couch. Now I’m buying those flowers from that stand on State Street, those Shasta daisies named for you. We meet on a hill in the park that day, and I can see you under the trees like a little princess, waiting for me to appear on that little stone pathway where princes might walk.
Now we’re listening to our song, the one where you fix me and I’m the light that guides you home. And we’re blind with love, you say, and people call us silly and young and trouble, and cute and meant-for-each-other too. Now you’re giving back those letters, the ones I wrote over weeks turned months, penned in medium black ink. These are for you, you say. Give them back to me when you mean it. Hopelessly devoted, they say. But never doubt, they say. I still have them.
Now you’re in Europe, just for a few months. We talk over the phone late into the American night and Parisian morning. I love you, you say, in the snow, under the moonlight, outside your brother-in-lawís house. I love you, you say, on a jittery camera, with the wind blowing outside, from France. I love you, you say, in the dark, over the phone, in the early morning hours. I love you.
Now you’re back, looking up at the winter sky with its wispy clouds, hands tucked into a dark peacoat, neck hugged warmly by a white wool scarf, cheeks flushed with cold, feet in bow flats. You havenít yet seen me seeing you, and I enjoy it for one more moment.
Now when I see you it’s like seeing ghosts, outside my window in your wedding dress, asleep in the passenger’s seat while I drive, waiting under the trees of every park with a stone pathway. This is the story I told myself I would never tell, no matter what.By Sam
