"I should have asked you to get on the plane. Sometimes, this thing we had seemed alldaydream and..."

“I should have asked you to get on the plane.

 

Sometimes, this thing we had seemed all

daydream and hearsay.

It was so

poetic

to love in two different cities:

three thousand miles between us.

It was so

safe.

 

I am less ashamed than I thought I would be

to admit that I was afraid.

 

When your mother kicked you out,

I wrestled with my own trembling conviction:

kept trying to bring myself to ask you

to move in with me, down South.

But daydreams don’t sign leases, and

it seemed like so much to ask.

I didn’t want to be

just another person

demanding more

than you knew how to give.

 

I stayed quiet.

I offered you a couch to sleep on, but

that’s not what I meant. Or,

it is what I meant, but

I was too scared to say the rest.

 

I should have asked you to get on the plane.

Now, I just hope you can forgive me

that I didn’t.”

- NO MORE CRYING IN AIRPORTS by Ashe Vernon