His Idea
by A. A. Parr
for Mary

He didn’t always
know what to say,
know how to fill the spaces
without silences, without
approximations of the person
he thought you wanted
him to be.

He usually felt like at any moment
you might suddenly realize
you’d rather be alone
than next to him, than in this space
he’d painstakingly built
for someone other than you.

And when it came to this, when
you let your mind settle
on the thoughts that had been filling
each crevice of fear of longing of
wanting more from life than
someone’s might as well, he said it was his idea.

All along, you were his idea,
you were his chance at being known
...

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