Slammed & Split

Giving Flowers

Download Giving Flowers as an mp3 (Soon)

It wasn't supposed to end this way,
with broken promises
half-hearted excuses
and truthless ruthless
unflinching aloofness.

We were supposed to be nominated
for your consideration
friends with potential
as wedding guest invitations
living our lives
playing out machinations;
bragging, supportive
full of heartfelt congratulations,
pats on the back
and positive affirmations.

But we slipped down the slope
from bitterness to indifference;
once mad enough to care,
but now we've lost interest
to ingest the simplest
of strung along situations.

You let me down so easy
I never noticed
I'd fell on my face.
Thinking back on it,
you played me --
it was a GD disgrace.

I was supposed to be past that
a smooth moving sweet talker
chalking numbers on mortar
escaping situations
that get bogged underwater.

The first time we hung out
I thought you were cute
and by the fifth time,
it was the right time to move.
I started to push
and you kept playing it cool.
I respected that gangsta
especially when you stated
what I thought was the truth
when you said we should slow down
to avoid having to lose
the romance we'd planned
to later pursue
because a one-night stand
would break our bonds loose
and neither of us seemed ready to let the other slip through
our fingers
so we lingered
kept the relationship in a booth
behind glass
to be smashed
in case
of emergency.

And with time,
life happened.
Other people were snapping
our attention to focus
weaving webs trapping
us in ourselves
lives we raced
and were lapping
speeding right by
the checkpoints behind
the final stone capping
sealing foundations
laid by inaction.

I set you up
when you began moving on
to your next step
I called connections
to help you along
because leaving you helpless
seemed to be wrong;
not realizing the whole time
you were leading me on
leaving Facebook to sing
your relationship song
in notes on your mini-feed.
A confirmation call
and a birdie told me
I should've already known
the word on the street
was moving on
meant moving in
with someone on whom you were sweet.

I called you out
and you said you thought I knew
three weeks before
I traveled out to see you
and a slew
of friends and relatives
I'd been meaning to,
though the impetuous
that spurred follow through
was finally finding
ourselves in a new situation.

You texted,
I answered
and you left me hanging
watching Monday Night Football
with friends and family
enjoying myself
and reacting gamely
to your late-night
trite excuse
about forgetting the time,
one so overdue
I ran right through
the required responses;
white lies all,
not meant to be honest,
wrapped up cleanly --
a bouquet of blue bonnets;
a parting gift
to show what you've won
and you've got experience
to predict an outcome:

For a time they'll be beautiful
but too soon wilted and done.
Nothing temporary can last
it's just a matter of when
you can toss it into the trash.