Dirty laundry
There was never a time when we could call it simple.
It was easy, to be sure.
as easy as it ever was and ever is to make mistakes right out in the open,
to leave them hanging in the sun
like well-worn jeans, just washed.
each choice we make, naked and visible, a clue.
All of my choices hanging in the air,
right there, just there, just waiting,
to catch your eye.
Choices like a question mark
in the middle of a sentence
in the middle of a page
in the middle of a conversation, we keep having over and over again.
My sentence is life.
Life to you and you to me.
My sentence is all the words we left unspoken and hung out on the line to fade.
It’s so easy, so frayed. The uneven hem that we’ve become.
And it’s about time, I think, to wonder where all the good things go.
What happens when we are not wishing to bring it all in and hide it and not be judged
for what’s clean and what’s new and what’s not?
Bring it in and hide it where no one can see it, safe and damp in the basement.
All our good intentions locked away.
After all, what’s so wrong with hanging your laundry up under the sky?
It’s clean,
unlike so many thoughts during these hours
when the stars are so many and the chances to catch your eye
are so few.
It’s what’s backwards about this world, isn’t it?
We hang our clean linens out there,
and in the air, all they see is our dirty laundry.
It’s just that mistakes are easier to count.
So many, or for some, so few. But not for you.
And what’s backwards is that
I remember every time you let me down.
Where did all your good things go?
Hidden down there in the cellar somewhere I suppose.
Where is that surge of understanding
and beauty that lives in your expression? Your expressions.
Where did that smile you get sometimes, just those times, go?
That smile you get when we finally manage to catch each other’s eye?
Safe and damp and hiding from the sun and the air and all the people that
only pretend to care.
Because no matter how much we wash they will never see us as clean.
Because what’s hanging from the line is the card they use to keep score.
Out there, in the open air, for everyone to see.
But we want it to be simple. We want it to be clean.
So we air our dirty laundry and the sun cuts a shadow across the lawn. Everyone can see.
And standing underneath that sun, that air, that line that we should cross
I’ll be there
waiting, just waiting
to catch your eye.