We used to play cards on Tuesday nights
in the small office of a used car lot.
I would look at the old beaters as they came in.
Wonder what their stories were.
Who drove them.
Where they had travelled and what they had seen.
“All rust and dust” my friend used to say.
As they age their value goes down.
Which is what some folks think about people.
But really, the opposite is true.
My friend would ask
why I played cards
with those old geezers.
He didn’t get it.
Many people don’t.
I just told him I always win.
It was true.
Not in terms of money.
But in everything else I got from those guys.
Stories
Wisdom
Laughs.
One old guy used to cheat like a *******.
I let him get away with it.
I hope when I get old
somebody cuts me some slack.

I am a sort of
All or nothing
Type of person.

Either everything and all of me
Goes into everything and all of it
Or none of me does.

I do not
Sort of love people.
I either love them with all that I am and can be
Or I couldn't care less about their existence.

I never claimed it was healthy,
I never claimed it was good,
But it is me
It is all that I am.

So sit across from me
At a glass table,
Have your cards fanned out
Like bird feathers,
Covering your face,
So I cannot read your eyes,
Or see your cards in the light that burns in them.

Stoic and blank,
You draw every card
And I don't know what you have on the table,
But the only reason I look so concerned-- Well,
It has nothing to do with the cards in my hand,
I have no tricks up my sleeve.

It has everything to do
With the fact
That everything is on the table,
And I'm trusting that if I were
To draw your cards
And mine
From a Tarot deck,
That maybe our predictions
Would be the same.

I've never been good,
At card games.
Can't shuffle to save my life,
Can't read palms,
I see too many colors
To make out the lines
In that elegant manner
That you're supposed to have.

I can't read tea leaves,
They just look like faces to me.

But I'm taking a risk,
I'm taking the chance,
It's really all or nothing.

And just maybe
Instead of risking it all
And coming out with nothing,
This time I'll have something
Just something
To win.

I am an
All or nothing
Type of person.

Take my heart
Take my words
Take my memories,
And heed only these warnings:
Handle with care!
Know you will never forget what you've learned.