The disconnect in your voice speaks
to an agreed upon dysfunction you settled
for early on. The contract was signed years back
when hope still existed in your child heart.
I sidle up next to you cautiously, uncomfortably
as to not break the facade of your finely tuned
and measured responses.
As we saddle up inbetween this agreement and your
unfound desire(s), that you won’t speak in fluent tongues
about love, a love once promised to your young heart.
Conspicuously, we nod to the silence and the icy facade
as you butter your toast and then smear jam, accidentally,
on your most loved flea-market brocade.
Changing the subject to a better thought, and a better
series of events than this, I shift my attention to your
broken Television, for which I promised to fix.
Although, you ignore my questions and drift off
toward the sink, to wash the stain from your most prized gift,
a gift you bought at your weekly visit, to the local Western
thrift, the Western Flea, the outdoor market at the end of your street.
I fiddle about with the connections you’ve lost on your set
and hope for the best for this little broken TV.
©Jay Mora-Shihadeh
Photo by Daria Shevtsova from Pexels
#Poetry #Prose #Freeverse
