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You First


by Darryl Price


Does it matter who's not paying attention? 
We do what we can to provide some 
much needed light in your eyes. But only 
a boring fool says it doesn't hurt when 

they stab you hard. I only wish I could 
say something that's not an explanation. 
You don't need that from me, and I certainly 
don't need it spilling forth from my lips. 
Don't let me down is too old fashioned now. 
We already look pitiful enough 

without the eschewed words being spent on 
nothing but the floor's sleeping back. There was 
however a time you took everything 
I offered, it's no secret, although it 

might as well have been. You didn't want to 
believe I couldn't imagine a lie 
coming from you and you meaning it. That's 
a poor sentence, but, really, its structure 
is the real truth I never got over 
from you. And now, the road is unrecognizable, 

as am I. It's a number. 
Okay? It's a key in a hole. Unturned. 
Unreleased from its bound assumptions. I'm 
driving, but it's hard to say where, if it's
 
a day or at somebody's night, I know 
you hate that kind of talk. You say when things 
are sad like that it means they are mistaken. 
They are trouble. At least, I tried. That's 
also a pretty close analysis, 
I guess, is it any wonder, but it's 

the cruelest look you could have thrown at me. 
I got it right through the neck. You just want 
to be entertained, even while the walls 
come crumbling down. You don't think that's too 

much of a favor to ask. The last thing 
I want is to disturb your rocking Sunday 
afternoon. I had a different 
reaction to the cure for a heart. That's 
all. I tried to break it to you gently. 
You called it vanity, this lonely place.
 
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