The dark side of town/you- in Duluth and Minneapolis

This poem is about Paul, no other

She was larger than life
She could not love demurely
Her hands grasped you 
like you were the last, best thing on earth
your brown eyes
lay asunder to any suspicions of real love

She withdrew to dust when 
you left, inbetween passages
moving to cities with complete strangers
with no details no trace

She was a piece of your wise kingdom
and an outlaw in your family
Although they were full of manifested flaws
blood relatives with no grace
many of them hated women
that resembled your mother

abandoning
awakening
an undedicated housewife

Who was the backbone of support?
When you looked for the size 22 women
who would say anything you wanted

You're weak now but stable
yet unfulfilled
She is still chasing your dream
down Grand Avenue
with the enthusiasm of your father.

Circa 1996-1997

jdh

6.30.17

The matter is settled

I feel like Friday's incident at work got the best of me, too.  It led me to tears because of the long working day.  The tears fell down my face at Visionworld while I was waiting for Loran's glasses.  I worked it out with Paul's aunt today at work and we came to an understanding.  She can see that I am a decent, caring person and whatever happened 15 years ago was important but now immaterial.  Paul and I did go after eachother's throats after the break up.  I jacked the car back I sold him because he was too dumb to transfer the title but later gave him another car.  He is just a baby, he never worked out the issues.  In my long term opinion, he went from Karla to me to Kim to Tonette.  He never healed over any situation.  He just got more desparate and persistent.  I truly hope he gets what he wants from life - a woman totally dedicated to him so he will never have to feel insecure again.  I am not the type to pamper and cajole men.  I want someone independent and strong.  Paul, you are past tense.  so why are you still fighting the battle?  Turn it over to God.  God will heal you of the past.

Paul: a rising memory seen through ice cream....

Tonight I had microwaveable ice cream because at midnight, I could not wait for the self melt variety of old fashioned vanilla.  I ate in the dark by the space heater.  My mom would pour a narrow stream of chocolate flavoring over the ice cream when I was a child.  I had it that way tonight.  Tonight, memories pervade me like a long sought out dream.  Ghosts and closet relatives arise from their mantle and grave to take notice of me.  I met the "love of my life's" aunt at work today.  A closet relative whom I really did not know about.  Myrtle.  My ex boyfriend's mother's sister.  His mother died young in life, in her early sixties and she was not the best parent in his childhood.   His aunt, whom I came face to face with for the first time, seemed more responsible with years of hard work.  She is the evening cleaning staff at my new job.  She has a black, velcro brace for her left wrist, most likely carpel tunnel.  She is probably in her late sixties, possibly early seventies.  We briefly argued over the year Paul's mom died.  I thought she died a year after we broke up but it was 2001.  A few sketchy statistics led me to the path of discovering it was Paul she was talking about.   Married, in Calif, to an Italian.  So I somehow knew right away it was Paul, my ex.  Myrtle seemed to have a cutoff point in which she could no longer talked about Paul.  Apparently, she realized how important he was to me.  It was something I could not hide.  I wonder if tomorrow when I come to work, she would look at me differently me if she really knew I had been engaged to her beloved nephew.  She somehow took akin to him over all the other nieces and nephews she had.  (She had ten brothers/sisters).  It seems strange now how I met one of his relatives transfixed in time 15 years later, like a dark, undiscovered cloud or berry that had ripened.  The door to my heart reached through the back way and I rediscovered my lost love for him.  Paul, I know you settled in life when you used to be an extremist, a go getter.  You settled for the safe woman with the good job who was only semi attractive.  How is that working for you?