James MicicIt’s nearly here. Less than a week until that next big event on our calendars.
There is inevitably always an ambivalent feeling towards that ‘Special’ fourteenth day of the second month that comes around each year, but why? There are people that, for better or worse, have nobody with which to share this day and will not or cannot appreciate the chocolates, cherubs and chivalry that the day might evoke. There are other people that, again for better or worse, do have someone! These people will revel in buying and receiving pink, red and heart shaped (and often fluffy) presents, paraphernalia and panties—if you’re the saucy type. The reasons why one loves or hates this particularly ‘pretty’ day varies about as much as the amount of blood colour… I mean love coloured merchandise that can be found at the time, from Clinton’s Cards to Ann Summers. Everyone has a story, whether endearing or embarrassing, that can be given as their justification.
I have one such story, but given that it’s close to ‘that’ time of year it seems appropriate to tell it in a manner befitting such a time. So here is a poem that can be considered my justification for my slightly jaded view on Valentine’s Day.
One man and one woman,
Three years they have shared
A life of ‘long distance’,
Of joy and despair
But today is a day
With much burden to carry,
For they leave on a plane
Destination: Le Gai Paree
It was the last of attempts
To mend bridges now burnt,
But young and naïve
There was still much to be learnt
The morning of their flight
Hardly a word they did utter
Nor Exchanged,
Nor Reciprocated;
Not even a mutter
But they felt that this enchanted place they were venturing
Was one which would change life for the better
But bridges, once burnt,
As they had not yet learnt
Were cinders that were ashes forever
They arrived at the airport
Nothing left to sort,
Everything double checked…
Except the passports
With hope in their hearts
And forgetting all hate
They hand over their passports
“Sir, your passport’s out of date!”
His sheer stupidity is glaring now
With the world stood staring now
But before the pain could abate in him
She could no longer wait for him
Debate with him
So to the plane she did dock…
Without him
“What a cock!” – He thought and he wrought inside
In an effort to hide his feelings and pride
beneath a mask he did feign at his inability to maintain
A valid document to board a goddamn fucking plane
He just couldn’t fit it…
So to buy a new ticket he went
With a ticket in hand and with a vague form of a plan
One hundred miles to Newport he took course,
Six hours later he emerged with a book that would purge
His guilt and wilt his pain and remorse
Twenty four hours had passed since they parted their ways
And at the airport he stood once more;
Everything approved,
Flight went perfectly smooth,
His feet now planted firmly in front of the hotel bedroom door.
He was shitting himself for sure.
Feeling infinitely deprived now,
Of any ability to derive how
to spin something positive out of these events that would surely go down as tales,
He thought to himself:
“This is all pretty bleak,
this day feels like a week,
but at least I got a trip to see Wales!”
That night was a cold night both in temperature and temperament
And such conditions allowed no more room to pretend;
Though they shared the same bed,
Said all that there could to be said
The reality was that it was in truth “the end”
Though the relationship was over the vacation was not
And two days remained until home;
From the Mona Lisa in the Louvre
To the pinnacle of the Eiffel Tower
They spent their time together but were completely alone
Over seventy two hours these events took place
And their memories, though now old, are like clay;
And ever present in their minds
firmly sedimented in time
All the more because twenty four of those hours were on Valentine’s Day
What’s your story?