Pome #4: "I Love You. Good-Bye." (Reprinted from 5/6/2009, Edited Where Necessary)

I started writing as a little child.

Poems and songs sprang from my developing imagination at, roughly, age eight and beyond. I did a lot of songwriting and poetry-writing between 1974 (when I was 17, 18) and 1982. Most of these songs and poems were only shared with my closest friends. Some of the songs were introduced to small segments of the world via a handful of bands I fronted in the very late 1970s and early 1980s.

Speaking objectively after several days of re-reading my old shit stuff, I can honestly say that I think that some of the songs and poems I wrote were pretty good. A few -- like the Morrisonesque poems I wrote circa 1981 -- really stank. Most fell somewhere in between.

And now, today's poem gets one of my typically wordy introductions.

I'm not exactly sure when this poem was originally written. Sometime in the early 1990s, IIRC. I was working as one of three overnight bakers in a supermarket chain. The store I was stationed at was, at that time, open twenty-four hours a day.

One morning, well after midnight but long before dawn, I was in the far corner of the bakery frying doughnuts when one of the other bakers walked up to me and said something to the effect of "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" I replied.

"A woman just asked me to write on a cake for her."

"And?"

"She had me write 'I love you, but good-bye' on it!" I immediately thought of three or four reasons why someone would want to express that sentiment to someone else -- most involving cheating lovers with guilty consciences -- but couldn't get over the idea of having those sentiments put on a cake! "Wow," I told him, "If someone gave me a cake with that written on it, I'd either throw it out onto the lawn, or right at her!" He agreed with me.

But naturally, I walked away thinking, "There just has to be a song or a poem I can get out of that!"

And there was, of course. So here it is.

* * * * *

I Love You. Good-Bye.

I woke last night, and washed my face, and roughly rubbed it dry.
The towel held your perfume's trace. It nearly made me cry.
I went back to the cold, cold bed that seemed so warm before,
And fought the tears and creeping dread till you walked in that door.

Neither of us had to speak. We both knew where you'd been.
You do this three, four times a week and then come sneaking in.
I'd like to play your games, your way, and beat you at this race,
But when I try, I just can't stay. The girls all have your face.

You won't see me cry.
You won't see me cry.
I love you.
Good-bye.

I guess there's nothing I can do to keep you true to me.
It must be me; it can't be you. I wish that I could see
A way to change your life, and mine, just like a fairy tale,
And leave this rotten life behind. But if I tried, I'd fail.

You care enough to still come home, yet let me die by inches.
Your love's the cruellest thing I own. It pulls, it cuts, it pinches.
There's nothing here I care to pack, so next time you go cheating,
I'll leave for good ere you come back, to save me one more beating.

You won't see me cry.
You won't see me cry.
I love you.
Good-bye.

* * * * * 

See? This is why I stopped writing poems and songs over ten years ago (with rare exceptions). My regular stuff is depressing enough, but the poems and songs were worse!

Starting next Wednesday... Back to normal, whatever the hell that means. OR... would you like to see more "pomes," at least for a few more posts?

Thanks for your time.

P.S. ~~ HEY, FELLOW BABIES! There's a brand-new glitch in Blogger which dozens of Blogger-bloggers have complained about in Google's HELP Forum. When someone leaves a comment, the blog's author no longer receives an email informing them that someone has commented. There are multiple threads in the Blogger Help Forum, but only ONE answer from an actual Google person... and what she suggested didn't work. Hopefully it'll be straightened out soon. Several Blogger-bloggers are threatening to move to WordPress.