Life is unequal. There are more stars than the moon.
Love comes sweetly too late, or excitedly too soon.
Earth has a greater day when summer warms the night.
He finds joy in the winter. She finds joy in the light.
She—my love—was sexy and aloof,
But I—I wanted proof
Of love, while she could love, and not love.
After love, she sought the mundane,
While loving her, always, made me always, insane.
The madness of love belongs to only one—
He seeks the stairs—she needs the sun.
Up in the darkness, flying around up there,
He looks for her—different, because a little more removed from care.
We can understand the yellow, and say exactly what we mean,
But she frowns and turns away and wants more green.
We can be stable, or we can lose our minds,
We can run to meet the day, or slowly pull down the blinds.
Unequal! I loved without end, but she, only for a time.
She was one of those
Who worried and fretted in prose
While I sang—and died—in rhyme.
Moods are unequal—some rise to genius with wrath
Mixed with love unequally, like poor Sylvia Plath.
Or one travels out, into the cold day
And drowns in the warm rain, like Edna St. Vincent Millay.
Poets will love poets, but they always seem to miss,
Meeting in a strange dream, too strange for the simple kiss.
Shelley sailed outward, in a dangerous boat,
Leaving her within, coughing with a footnote.
One played a trumpet sadly in the shadows, here,
Promoting tears in them—but never for her, a tear.
Some want to love in the spring, and some want to love in the fall.
Some want to love too much, and some, not at all.
The world is unequal. Protesting for equality,
She lost her head to one who lived aesthetically,
Who pointed to the whole face, who quoted Edgar Poe:
Progress is useless. The light is better than what’s below.
I accepted the tragedy of asymmetry—I knew
She would always love me, and I would never have you.