I can settle for a name
Or a word
For poems or for jokes.
I can settle
Today or some years later
A few more marks stretching across my torso
Where will it end?
You tell me a story five times in a year
The endings remain the same
You share your life and take mine away from me.
I can settle for your stories
Or for your mass manufactured emotions
Or for the quiet unsettling way you weaken my woes
Say the right words. At the right time
I would settle for you if you were the right one,
Mine.
A few more drinks, a few more drags
And we will call it
Intoxication
We will call it friendship. I can settle for a friendship
My instincts retracting inside
I can’t settle for you
I step out with a sleeping heart
Dormant. Not a doormat
Smiles may bloom someday. Let’s hope?
Yet it was so simple, so long ago.