{Lights up, kid,
stage is set.
Spotlight’s burnin’ holes in ya.
Audience’s got that dread-judge stare to ‘em,
‘n that mic feedback ain’t doin’ wonders here.
Say what you came to say.}
Love.
I do love you, all these years later.
It’s weird.
Kind of.
And it’s taken me a long time to say I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.*
[*Strain, Dippel, et. al.: Mr. Kennedy, this draft is not nearly long enough, and the lacking specificity rends our hearts. You’re better than this Mr. Kennedy. So much fucking better than this.]
{They ain’t clappin’ yet,
are they, kid?}
You know how I used to call you my spark?
How I used to write all those sappy love poems about you?
I was curled fetal in the bathroom the other day,
and I couldn’t help but remember.
I couldn’t help but remember how big my hands looked next to yours,
or the way you glowed in that afternoon sunlight.
You and dust-motes darling.
You and dust-motes.**
[**Strain, Dippel, et. al.: Syrupy in all the wrong ways Mr. Kennedy. You are raw. You are truthful. Your honesty about your own flaws is admired, praised as couragous. You have been told that you have inspired other young writers to wrap the same honesty in their own pleasantly neurotic styles. You have more talent than this.]
{By this point,
there ain’t a soul still ‘vested in what you got to say,
sport.
Best be despensin’ the big guns here right quick.}
I couldn’t help but remember how big my hands looked next to yours.
I couldn’t help but remember how distant you were when you left.
I couldn’t help but remember.
Do you know that the sun was just starting to set as you left?
I’ve been remembering a lot of those little details,
like the tears in your eyes
that you didn’t care to explain.
And it’s taken me a long time to say I’m sorry
A long time to realize what I’m sorry for.
There was a moment,
in my mind
when you had never left
and I remembered then
the time you asked me to give you children
as I was trying my best.
I asked,
you told.
You glowed so bright in afternoon light,
I’m so sorry.
I never meant.
I never realized.***
[***Strain, Dippel, et. al.: Spit it out boy! You’ve hardly got the flair tonight, and it doesn’t seem like this is going to be your best work, so stop with the playing around]
{I believe in you kid,
pull the chalks off this wagon.}
There was a time when our favorite repast was to retire and read,
when we roved and wrote and raved to the late night skies,
when all the dreams promised to never rend.
When prom came along,
I took all these beautiful pictures of you
in my backyard,
set back a little in the woods,
trees between us and the rest of the world,
creeping ravine yawning.
You looked so at home in those woods.
Just us and our loves hidden away from the world.
And it’s taken me a long time to say I’m sorry.
And I can’t help but remember how small your hands looked in mine.
I’m sorry,
I’m sorry for the moment between bliss and hatred,
when our second favorite repast
made me rapist.
I can only imagine how terrifying it must have been.
I never meant–
But there’s no excuse.
{Stunned silence ain’t bad,
but it ain’t like you did your best.
You could have sold it better.}
[Mr. Kennedy, we need to talk immediately. Absolutely, immediately.]
I just.
I wanted to put it somewhere.
Somewhere you never have to read it,
but somewhere you’d find it if you ever needed.
It’s taken me a long time to say I’m sorry.
You left without a word,
never told me.
And I don’t blame you.
How could anyone blame you?
It’s a fucked up mess I don’t know what to do with,
and i’m so god damned sorry.
god.
christ.
I just–
shit.
{Nice closing retort}
