Sincerely, Jennifer x

She is said to have stolen the spare.
They say she bewitched and ensnared him,
capturing the man who couldn’t be tamed with her hoodoo, voodoo vixen charms,
but the boy was harmed,
hitting out at those who stole his youth,
used up the lioness that bore him and left her to the wolves.

He saw it all.
He sat on his father’s knee,
watching his mother fend for herself,
watching a life he didn’t want begin to build up around him,
brick by brick,
until he was walled into woeful obligations,
serving his nation by shutting up about his discomfort.

The war on “woke” begins,
but he decides that he’s fought long enough.
He falls in love,
finds himself as a family man,
quietens down and plays the game for a while,
but it’s hard to stay and play when the game becomes rigged,
and the bricks that were built around you find their way into the hands of your blood.

Suddenly,
everything she does is wrong.
She is a thief in the night,
and not the right kind of woman for a man like him.
Her actions echo his mother, his father’s lover and his sister,
but somehow, it’s different when it comes from her,
and nobody will admit why,
but the boy knows,
because he knows these people inside and out,
and he shouts out for help,
helpless as he watches another woman he loves wading in the depths of drowning,
a familiar story that formed every nightmare he ever had.

Is it so bad that he saw the future and formed a new path?
Is it so bad that he’d had enough of tough love, tuts of disapproval and the obvious disappointment in his failure to find love among the lilies?
Is it her fault that he faced another hole in his heart, and knew he couldn’t handle it?

A man who runs cannot be stolen.