On a pub / band crawl with friends in Vallarta, I enter the bar and have to squeeze by you as you were setting up your drums near the crowded entry door…

Wow, Kevin, You could not after two years, muster a simple, “Hello.”

Recall, I was ecstatic with my life in Oregon and having traveled/worked in 14 countries. You, Kevin, are the one who deliberately stopped the band – your band – two years ago to introduce yourself to me.

Two years later, I realize you are the dark one who requires another’s light to shine.

That makes me so sad. When I first met you, you were sparkly, with a wide smile and genuine heart. Between the two of us, we had the whole world. You broke my heart with the promise of your whole heart; all the while you deceived me.

I will never understand how one spends intimate moments, sharing deep love and vivid dreams, and yet can deny the spark that launched a thousand dreams ever happened. You must be really empty if you can spend two years loving a woman, accept every gift (not just ‘things’), and put on record that she is the angel you have been praying for, but cannot spare a second to acknowledge her. That is a sad commentary on your soul. I pray you find your way back to the musical magic that originally jumpstarted your heart.

The fact you could not acknowledge the woman you loved, the one who believed in you so much, she sacrificed her own work-life to help you realize your dreams. The positive-energy woman who led her life out loud with so much enthusiasm for living and love for you that her son and daughter-in-love carved out a special place for you at their wedding table. The faithful woman who regularly made her way across the miles to you and waited for you while you went through the Visa process. The understanding band widow. The one who kept the home fires burning hot so you could fall gently into the quiet retreat of solitude.

You greedily took it all, all the while knowing you would never be able to keep your promises. As there were others who were also this woman.

This is why I left you.

This is certainly why you have lost your manners, and your voice.

The rest will simply be the rest…

~ Just L (January 12, 2019)

Author’s Note: I write poems of love and loss. This is neither of those.

Did he deceive me from the beginning? I will never know. What I do know is the rest of my life will be as fabulous as before he entered it. As for him, all I know for sure is that lack of integrity has a way of making one miserable.