like treasure i didn’t dare keep
i buried all thought of you deep
without an ‘x’ to mark the spot
my back turned walking away, i forgot
(or so i hoped)
but now i gotta try and cope
for after three months of ‘who is this’ tag
i must now recall you the lover I needed but never had
your tall frame chiseled by the ocean’s depth
leaving crumbs on the field in the wake of your football steps
i’d cut class and hang in the home ec walkway
just to see you breeze pass and smile my way
i heard it’s quite juvenile
high school crushes only last a brief while
but what my ears believed then
was everything your soul said
(and then there was your pretty mouth)
this island-girl swore them chocolate lips had to be imported from Up South
i dreamt all freshman year in college
about what i would learn upon return from their knowledge
my living by then had made me un-naturally shy and hesitant
my game was a bag of tricks to keep at bay anything pleasant
but that was all for naught
when i hopped on the pay bus and heard your silent shout
(for the first time, i was home again)
guards and gates gone, willing to explore anything
since thirteen i had wondered about me and you
and eighteen presented a chance for that to come through
the night before i didn’t think of sleep
i stayed in the mirror practicing how to speak
what to wear, how to do my hair, focus my eyes
even pondered make-up, knowing i despise that disguise
i shall and will always love Frederiksted
if not for Basket Ballers, then Queen Nita (who the Dutch still fear ain’t dead)
And that day there with You
gave me reason to fall in Love again and also hate it brand new
(but that was ma fault)
swallowing your lie, i missed the fact a fuck was all you sought
and back at the house that night
i was ashamed to look at the gifts you bought me which had given delight
i didn’t dare cry in that house for then i would be asked
and there was no one there who i trusted to tell how much of an ass
i had just spent five years making myself
so i laid the gifts to rest in a box in the garage on the bottom shelf
constantly then, constantly trying to avoid now
my mind wandered wondering how
helpless and hopeless, unable to figure out
why the un-welcomed stole it and the needed found it not a gift to hold about
twenty-five years is a mighty short while
for it was just yesterday, i stood outside that hotel lost in time
the waves on the rocks of that deep harbor splashing my mind
‘maybe love is not meant for you, chile.’
12/27/2009 5:42:26 PM©cindy adrienne quashie
