Great Lengths of Time

Struggling still to move beyond what it is I saw as so inevitably wrong and yet undeniably perfect.

The two sides fighting against one another to hope for understanding, and that move on a bench to subtract those three people in between – so again that chemistry may brush against mine. Wanting the same things but always waiting for the other person to make the move we wondered why “you” weren’t. Hurt by the silence waiting for the other person to talk – and the other shoe to drop. So silly that things so simple could have opened into a world so wonderful. So stupid to fear getting soaked that the flower never was watered. We now sit scorched.

“Fear is the heart of love.” Ben Gibbord, you fool!, stealing my wife, and yet so right.

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My dad, a bit of a criminal and renegade salesman and my maternal grandfather, a top insurance salesman, I inherited the ability to talk about absolutely nothing for great lengths of time.