Baby, I thought it worked.
Baby, I don't understand what has happened.
Everything we knew, the pieces
one discovers when it's more than holding hands,
we splashed red. That lovey-dovey red.
Valentine display in a shop window red.
It was serious. Intense.
Too intense? Who's to say.
We were puppets made of lust,
glistening in the night
like glow-in-the-dark stars.
But baby, I had buttons,
and you pushed them all.
Set me whirring away as a spinning top
off the table. But I did the same to you.
Got you all flustered, red-faced, wet-cheeked.
We liked to nit-pick our mistakes,
gather them together, scrawl them into a list
on the fridge so every time I got a drink
I’d be reminded of last night’s tiff.
Baby, what were we doing?
You slept with your back to me,
and I’d be all fidgety. I’d go into our bathroom
and get angry. Curse at myself in the mirror.
I threw my heart at you
and you blended it to bits.
Where’s the ‘it happens in every book’ ending?
Baby, the ‘get you hankie out, they’re about to kiss?’
The couple across the street have it,
the waitress in the café.
Our parents must’ve had it.
These things happen. But why us? Why now?
How can you tread water one minute
then face the fact you’re drowning the next?
Baby, I’m too broken to be fixed,
but that doesn’t mean we can’t give it a try.
Baby, can you hear me?
Maybe I’ll repair you
and we’ll both feel like new.