was

She said it was all my fault we didn’t get together. That was at least a decade ago. She was referring to fifteen years ago.

My thoughts have returned to then. Never mind I don’t understand how not following my lead was my fault, never mind that I became grateful we didn’t combine; what’s interesting to me now is my thoughts return to then. I’ve got recent poems out of it. And this elderly blunderbuss.

I guess they return because I’d like some feminine company. Bit obvious that one, really. Perhaps they return because there’s an anniversary coming up, but I think not; they returned before I knew of the reunion.

There was an intense attraction. There would have been an intense personality clash. My need to lead, her pride not to be led. It would have been a few weeks of delicious lust, then until–we–gave–up unrepairable horrible disaster. The lust would have dragged it. I’m grateful we didn’t get together. I was grateful even before my invitations stopped. But it wasn’t my decision to always answer no, or nothing. Apparently that was my fault.

But let me admit something. I’ve been in a few, only a few, relationships. They’ve all failed pretty badly. The common factor in those failures is me. I’m not, as my prescriptive cousin presumes, commitment shy. I’m just crap. I’m crap at the creation, at the construction, at the development, at the doing. It’s not that I’m Groucho Marx & the relationship is the club.

I’ve not lived with anyone for thirty–five years. I hated it. Discouragement, discouragement, repression. Ugly. The blind power of big blunder foot. I wonder if I’m over it. Damn Larkin.