Crusty Edges

Crusty Edges.....  Thoughts of You

Days singing along with rhythm and blues,
Rainbow colors smeared by deep red hues.

Passing quickly, memories soaking in but not to the bone.  Like a sponge, dry on the inside, hard in the middle.  Splash it into the sink full of water but yank it out before life soaks in.  It looks wet, but it's not really, just on the outside, just on the part you can see.  Wring it and you will find but a single drip of happiness falling away, lost again to your selfish, childish hatred.  And the dry part, that relentless hard middle remains un-quenched, untouched, unloved.  You steal away the memories that should have been.  The ones flooding through the days like little tsunamis, slamming against the crusty edges of what's left of me when you are through, begging to be soaked inside, near the middle, near the heart that wants to keep them forever.  But you turn holy water to blood pudding, just spackling my dry, rough edges with the hint of something that was special, or was supposed to be.  And it must have been there, I know it was there because there's a stain on my shell where memories tried to get in but you destroyed them.  When does that end?  When does my responsibility to you end?  When can I leave you behind without thinking that I owe you something?  I want to scrape all the dried up memories of you like burnt, smoking toast and sprinkle those crumbs into someone else's ocean, to clog someone else's life with your constant need to be the center of the fucking world.  But I can't because God puts up with me and so I will put up with You.  For a while longer.  And because in spite of it all, I love you.



Copyright 2011
John Allen Richter