Unlaced

Unlaced

My first thought as I studied her
strange emerald eyes
was that this squall
would soon pass us,
even as she said that since
we last locked hands and
made promises with our lips,
she had dated
(and, not to mention,
showered naked with)
a local
named Fester.  

God, how I hated him,
that fuck, Fester.
I pictured a troll
in a red flannel shirt,
a living mistake, covered in sores
and the melanoma aroma of cheap cigarettes
with his malformed tentacles
wrapped around my Sexy Pants.

I leaned across the restaurant booth and
brushed the river of her cinnamon-purple hair,
a store-bought flavor.
I said those old incantations,
my eternal fail-safe, a Plan B of the ages.
I said, Lacey, whatever I did,
whatever I said,
I’m sorry, truly sorry, and
I love you.

But the L word was not enough.
She granted no redemption, no
release from sins long past.
I unleashed a torrent of brass apologies,
a legion of armored sorries,
but there was no uniting kiss, no
make-up sex.  

I thought we were
like the wax figures on the wedding cake,
fastened together by a fine red band.
But we weren’t bound,
we were lightly laced,
waiting to be unraveled.