Love Cliché
Rebekah believed in the power of the healing heart
Hearing her say this didn’t crush his heart,
But a part crumbled to the floor.
Another time she actually said the words,
One following the other, “mission statement”.
“Never settle,”
Patently ridiculous.
Everyone settles.
Should I not settle for my parents and get new ones?
Should I wait in a downpour for a cleaner taxi?
Should I quit school until I feel a universal oneness
precipitating a religious permutation
of all my classmates and teachers?
“Time is the most precious thing to me,”
Another of Rebekah’s dividends.
If you never settle, how much time are you wasting?
“Every day is special”.
She professed understanding and sweetness
– which she definitely was –
but also vindictive, callous and a formidable enemy.
When he was in the wrong,
she would bear down on him.
“I want to be happy all the time.”
After pondering, he said,
I think I would miss it, being sad,
if I was happy all the time.
She gave him a look.
“Knowledge is power.”
If you get an A on your physiognomy test,
I will make you lunch this Saturday.
It’s a slippery slope
from pouring hot wax on nipples to removing a vital organ,
he thought as he tongued a cube
of cantaloupe in his left cheek.
Since he was slowly losing his mind
and didn’t like being tugged
around by the short hairs of his crew cut,
he would occasionally lash out,
but quickly beg forgiveness.
“Tough love,”
she told him once.
After each incident she measured out
punishment with greater severity.
“Time is the most precious thing to me.”
Forgetting that she had mentioned it earlier
or trying to imprint the message through repetitiveness,
Rebekah told him after an incident
where he had strained to hurt her,
“I do not want to be with someone
who hurts me that way.”
The cornerstone of a good relationship
is being comfortably off balance.
* Paul Handley has driven a cab and sold meat door-to-door. Links to his work are at http://editred.com/mcdede
