Boy Met Girl

(At the risk of discovery, I'm reposting this)

He has nothing to sing about, nothing
To write—his dreams are all of dust.
He fills his journals with mad denunciations
And colors their faces with jade.

The works he weaves are women worshipped,
Naked, and sadly aware of their glory
The women and he have stale sex and beer
Trying—and failing—to revive their dead hopes.

He sits, the image of bitter youth.

She breezes in the sunlit class, chattering-blathering-yammering
Joy. Her eyes, how they sparkle, blaze with passion
For the world and life she says still believes in.
She gives a blinding metal smile as she giggles,

And her slight plumpness does not mask her light.
Blindingly oblivious of her beauty
She seems, and just as aware of the ways of the world.
She needs a keeper, or so he first thinks.

They sit together, the boy and the girl.

He is captured by the pictures she painted,
Of hope and dreams and great make-believes.
The sour taste in his mouth is getting sweeter,
And in spite of himself, he believes anew.

And she laughs at his jokes, though cruel they may be;
Of his pessimistic view, she’s extremely uneasy. Naïve,
She allows him to touch her,
In fleeting hugs and gestures.

Soon he’ll assume it is love at first sight.

But she’s not as innocent as she seems—
Her glass is half-empty. The veneer of cheer
Hides an angst-ridden heart—
And her eyes sometimes age an eon, or two.

She’s fully aware of his growing ardor,
Annoyed at his cynical jibes.
She’s far from the perfect princess he imagines,
And he’s in no way her knight-errant.

So ends the fairy tale of boy and girl.