8/17/2019 Poem - Haas - Sweet Pea

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you picked a sweet pea and gave it to me on my birthday

and I placed it in my breast’s pocket

we drank beer and danced until the music stoppedyou dropped yours in the middle of the floor

we swept away the shards but left the floor stained sticky

maybe just to keep our soles from slipping into one another or it could have been the spirit of gravity

it doesn’t really matter

you sang to me once, in that same bar 

I stood against the wall and imagined the cliché

sometimes I wasn’t sure if you were talking about you or me

I put just that song into my ipod, and listened for a whileI think now that it must have been you but wonder why it is you ache so badly

you always seemed to wear black and hats

 but in a way that it appeared unintentionalimmaculate is not the word for dark things

 but you didn’t brood in publicand besides it made your smile like lightning strikes

you bought a unicycleI missed you being there

so I sent you a message on myspace

we talked about the universe instead

some things are just better that way

I went looking for you once,lead by my fingers, yours have snakes on themI didn’t find what I was looking for, but I did invite you back 

I guess you were busy and distant

a year later birthday

 a band, dancing, a dropped beer, me

it was mine this time and I left it just the same

no shards just another layer of memory serum … perhaps a tradition unintentionally formed

happy birthday to me