Richardo speaks
Press play. Salute.
I'll always remember when I first caught a glimpse of you
It was in nineteen eighty-two as it rained like a crazy scene right out of Platoon
I saw you standing by the roadside on fifty-fourth street
Looking lost in a jostling crowd
Waiting for the traffic lights to change
Appearing all alone with a tattooed on heartbroken smile as the storm and drizzle
Merged with the roaring thunder which seemed so loud
I can remember watching the rain beat a crescendo of four to the floor in a strange tempo
Like on Quinto drums across your face as you all waited impatiently for the green light to go
I can faintly see if I push
All your makeup run and still taste that sweet aroma of your Chanel number five perfume
Even in this half-light
I can still see brief flashes of your soft smile and beguiling wild eyes in this very room
But like all the world's well-written love letters left behind
To be found by broken-hearted foolish lovers when it gets dark and the bedroom is now just regarded as a tomb
I've come to learn that written within every one
In each carefully structured line is a shiny red and black bejewelled dagger
A soft knife to the heart
Just hidden within solicitous thought out lines
Announcing unceremoniously with guile that all things are falling apart
Cunningly dressed up with sentimental metaphors in rugged sentences and personal paragraphs
Paraded in dramatic straight black and white pragmatic lines to be read by hungry eyes
Soon doomed to be wearing bright crimson uniforms
When pain can no longer be disguised
Lines overgrown with
Wait and I'll come back when you're ready
I just need more time
It's not you it's me
I understand why I uncontrollably used to cry
Now that I can truly see since you've been gone for a while
You see deep down when I pause and reflect
I guess I knew you were always filled with such despicable lies
Especially after talking to my mother
The cheapest therapist I ever met
She did warn me
Sometimes the truth will come out no matter how much they lie or try to fake it
It's just because some women just see men as another cheap franchise
To be acquired and rinsed
Used like prudent merchandise
Only then to be sacrificed by heartfelt love letters
They've probably copied like the ones they've already left to so many others
Who they left clinging on to the false hope that one day they'll return
On the gleaming tall shadowy altars of the
Unfortunate
Who are forever traumatised because unlike me
They'll never learn
For true loved can't be bartered or ordered
It must always be worshipped and endlessly earned
Copyright John Duffy
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