The Priory Lit. Mag

Anonymous 
He could’ve said anything right?
He could’ve told me all his secrets
and counted how many of his lovers he actually loved.
But instead he told me that Jesus was a name-brand
and the mysterious girls were the ones that caught his eye.
He could’ve taught me how to keep my sanity in the presence of racists
but instead he said that sanity,
well, sanity was just a button waiting to be pushed.
He taught me that crying and laughing weren’t crimes,
but loving him could grant me capital punishment.
He told me that wisdom was gained through experience but not through years,
and the wise don’t owe anything but innocence to the world.
He said of all the girls he’d been with,
the only one he trusted threw antilogies and him
and left to watch the seas storm.
He told me heroes were ruthless and chivalry was overrated,
that damsels in distress needed to grow some balls.
He asked me to teach him the art of lying as I knew it,
and that he’d buy me glass slippers
if I could convince him that alphabet soup was a scrambled novel.
He said to meet him on a street corner
and laugh at the stars behind a dark alley.
He showed me how sipping grape juice at wine festivals gave him new goggles,
and how to listen to Aristotle and dance with Plato.
He told me philosophers were just old men,
and that old men were saddened to death
for lack of getting a boner at the sight of young girls,
and lack of seeing color in lonely eyes like mine.
He described how he wanted to be murdered and the color of his blood.
And the way he counted lines on pieces of paper.
He taught me how to please a man
and then stated sex was his only vice.
He said to throw away my rhetoric and fly with him to Bermuda
or else jump into a pool of vocabulary and spit ugly words at passerby.
He told me I looked cold
but all that could be easily fixed by drug induced sleep
or maybe just a brief affair with his Kentucky Derby sweatshirt.
He could’ve said anything right?
He could’ve said he was ready and told me that cancer was just a setback.
But instead he said that he was scared to death
and taught me how to laugh at the irony of puns.