The Manuscript

Now and then she re-reads the manuscript

Of the entire torrid affair

They compared their licenses

He said "I'm not a donor but

I'd give you my heart if you needed it."

She rolled her eyes and said "you're a professional"

He said 'No, just a Good Samaritan'

He said that if the sex was half as good as the conversation was

Soon they'd be pushing strollers

But soon it was over.

In the age of him she wished she was thirty

And made coffee every morning in a French press

Afterward she only ate kids' cereal

And couldn't sleep unless it was in her mother's bed

Then she dated boys who were her own age

With dartboards on the backs of their doors

She thought about how he said

Since she was so wise beyond her years,

Everything had been above board

She wasn't sure.

And the years passed like scenes of a show

The professor said to write what you know

Looking backwards might be the only way

to move forward

Then the actors were hitting their marks

And the slow dance was alight with the sparks

And the tears fell in synchronicity with the score

And at last

She knew what the agony had been for.

The only thing that's left is the manuscript

One last souvenir from my trip to your shores

Now and then I re-read the manuscript

But the story isn't mine anymore.