Beautiful Land

I lied to you, 

I have never wished I hadn’t met you; 

I just wish you were the second woman I fell for after Jill, 

Not the first. 

Why did fate have to make you first; 

I held her for so long it tore holes to set it down, 

So many years where thoughts were undying

Then I learned to face reality. 

In quantum physics they say that every decision we make is played out in a parallel universe, 

In another reality the glazed madness built on the blocks of death smashed against another woman’s shores. 

The unrequited stranger would have taken then blows instead; 

She would have received the composted thoughts at 2am, 

Disjointed text messages would have filled her phone 

Yours would have been left quiet. 

She could have been the lady to have broken the back of the sorrow 

Traveling in my shadow since Jill took her last breath.

Fifteen years of love would have broken against her instead, 

Been processed with her as the backdrop; 

I could have met you with a clear mind and an open heart 

Not the mess that approached you two years back. 

Knowing you made me a better man; 

Your phantom lent me it’s strength and determination to confront her ghost 

Clean her clothes out of my closet. 

I filled the holes in the darkness with a child’s thoughts of you and what comes after. 

Benjamin Franklin has a quote that goes 

“it is better to say nothing and let think you the fool than to open your mouth and prove it true”; 

When I open my mouth, I put my foot in, 

To cure it I shove the whole leg in afterwards. 

The peek you gave me of the ink on your back 

Looks to tell a tale beyond a life of privilege, 

Something outside of European vacations and trips to Disney World. 

My fingertips would have traced all of those lines 

Back to there well spring, 

Taken each story into myself 

Until we would become lost at where you would end and I begin.