Monday, November 22, 2010

A Separate Peace

by Jacqueline Frasca


It was printed in the closed expression
on his face, too plainly printed to mistake; 
he needed me. He knew I was the least 
trustworthy person he had ever exchanged
mischievous glances with - I had even 
told him, but there was no other excuse 
for the remoteness in his voice; he wanted 
me around. Every small fracture of existence
except the smile in his eyes that would 
alight when I reversed my previous 
indignity lost their meaning to me. 

He told me, “You know, when you love something
it loves you back in whatever way it 
has to love.” – I disagreed with him. 
Every ounce of everything I knew told 
me differently - but like everything else 
about him, all his thoughts and beliefs, it
should have been true. I could not argue. 
I suddenly knew nothing at all. 

He let me run from it all. The sound of 
my escape was pitched off short in the vast,
immobile dawn, as though there was no room
amid so many glittering sights for
my sound to intrude. But they pulled me back 
in, as the snow pulled me back toward this mess. 

For hours, and sometimes for days, I felt
the expanse, without realization, 
of the private explanation of the world. 
I ceased to have any real sense of it. 
And this alone was liberation we 
had torn from the grey encroachments, 
an escape we had concocted - a separate peace.

No comments:

Post a Comment