Once Upon A Lifetime

He gazed at her with doleful eyes,
carelessly tossing a fragment of a smile.
Made-believe he was holding a Fender Stratocaster he didn’t know how to play and.

He held what he imagined to be the precise chord to mirror what he felt.
Turned to watch the ocean shift restlessly in its bed and.

In his mind, he raised his left brow,
let his close-cropped hair fall over his shoulder.
Then he sang in his sandpaper voice.

He sang.

"Are you out, or are you in?
Shall we stop, or begin?
Do you know how I feel?
Can we ride now, with the wheel?

Shall I stay, is it changing?
Or have we lost on rearranging?
Shall I strive, or shall I wait?
Shall I change what looks like fate?"

Then he extended his hand,
and he let it just lie there outstretched in the enormous emptiness.
Waiting.

She sat there, pondering
for a little over two minutes past eternity,
her mind caught in a downward spiral,
her thoughts circling in eddies
that led her to a dark tunnel infested with ghosts.

She shook the drops of sorrow out of her hair.
Her hair.
Her hair.
And then she placed her hand in his outstretched handwith a finality that didn't need an adjective.