Ditto

That nervous night we met by blooming bud

We tripped on awkward holes we couldn’t know.

My laughter wished to see your face again

You took my hand and answered softly “ditto.”

Those early days of sweaty sheets and flesh

Cascading fucking beans into our jar.

And nestled in your breasts I found my home

I said I must have more and you said “ditto.”

The ditto game was ritual we loved

When PDA made children scream and laugh.

I’d say I wanted Chinese pizza dogs for lunch.

You’d give thumbs up and winked a “ditto.”

The day the world would know that we were bound

you said to all you found within my eyes

The woman that no one had ever seen.

And yet you said “I will.” I shouted “ditto.”

But even from the first I said my face

Was just a trick of life and shadowed nights

I couldn’t be the man you surely wished

I couldn’t be a man.

I hadn’t been a man.

I’d never be a man.

You just said “ditto.”

But hidden from our glight and jaughing life

The woman only I could see was driven out

secreting star light in a box.

I wept to know her fading from my life.

I hardly saw her now and from

a hundred years away I heard a muted “ditto.”

You can’t have both of us you said when finding

out I had to bring her back to live.

I said to lose you was my greatest tear

You turned away and did not utter “ditto”

Now homeless and in quiet panic found

you sitting in that budding night alone.

I sat beside and touched but looked away.

To lose your love was my life’s greatest wound.

You stood to walk away and whimpered “ditto”