There are two kinds of lovers, the broken and the young,
both are doomed but reborn in each other’s eyes. A lawyer
and a doctor walk into a bar. One argues for the truth
of the heart, the other cuts away the disease that eats it.
Both will be stuck with the tab at the end of the night.
I’ve been the lawyer, so sure that I can argue down
disdain; the doctor, trying to heal the broken at all costs.
Nobody wants to drink alone, but everyone does.
I no longer go to bars; I’ve moved them into my living
room, late evenings spent dazed and missing she-who-
will-not-be-named. Once the fruit had been eaten, Eve begged
the snake to say her name just once more. Through the blinds,
I watched the life I’ve always wanted step into a waiting car,
a hint of leg through that red dress. There’s nothing so common
as feeling things deeply. Maybe it was when I was on the way
to the store, maybe it was eavesdropping on the true language
of the moon, but I was safe in my world of pain when you arrived
in shadow, a doctor I could heal, a lawyer I could convince.
There are two kinds of lovers, you and me. We’ll take turns
buying each other drinks. I’ve got space on my patio, some jazz
drifting over the slow night. In the parking lot, all the lives
we never wanted take turns crashing into each other while we sip.
Photo by Alex Dukhanov on Unsplash
