Fading in the Park

Adam J Marsh
2 min readMay 18, 2020

Over time, the memory has faded,
yet there’s a girl in this image,
crystallized within bright light-amber,
Swaying
with the breeze
in a floral dress
at our local park.
The sunshine beams all around and behind her,
as she flashes her all alluring, destructive smile
at me
and I
smile back that charming ass, dope sick grin
at her.
And it’s love.
That makes me want to push a boulder up a hill,
Work a grueling ass, low wage, job as a labourer
or lifting bricks up a ladder for her
or in a factory, lifting boxes, driving forklifts.
I would defend you with my life,
my darling,
all for you.
These things and many others,
that love drunk saps say
are what flow freely from my mouth,
at this point in time when my concept of love was young.
Cause what I didn’t know at the time,
cause I wasn’t fluent in the language of relationships,
Was that I was way too happy for potential,
When I should’ve been content in the moment and kept moving,
Cause a failure was acoming.
It was always is.
I bet on the wrong fighter, at the big title fight at the MGM Grand.
It happens.
When it does,
You’re only 50 dollars out of pocket,
not fuckin’ bankrupt — but it feels that way.
Your ego disagrees.
But it doesn’t shovel the fuckin’ asphalt and pay your bills now does it?

She fucked a lot of other guys,
I fucked a lot of other girls,
The timing just wasn’t right.
The timing’s never right

but we were something together.

For what we should’ve had.

And I kept on writing,
and she kept on living,
Tabs we’re kept on,
Conversations were had, where we mentioned each other to acquaintances in passing, and heard about the other through said acquaintances.
It was never a salty thing to hear their name,
In fact, it made me smile, because she was good people and deserved happiness in the sunshine like I do.

I reminisce over that image sometimes.
And when I do,
I’m grateful for the pain it caused,
cause for if nothing else,
It built some character through suffering,
and squeeze a little bit of art & wisdom onto my plate.

We still haven’t forgotten each other (Trust me, I know she hasn’t)

Maybe we didn’t go through enough of a hurting in our lives,
to appreciate our future together.
It’s a bullshit dream sometimes,
that floats through your head,
leads you down a path for many months in a feverish hallucination,
robbing you of a hard reality,
that will force you to

And that’s just how it goes.

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