Estimation

I smile sweetly
and
    don't know why,
feign agreement, casualty of
frame and form,
lay down- and you...
I struggle to know myself, so surely
                   know not you.
But I try.  I've tried.  Why must I keep trying?

      If love is a game, my strategy backfired, so I review, recall my
                           moves
to see where I've miscalculated and find it's been all along.
                    I've over and under estimated us both, danced vapid, showed weakness at every turn.

                                            Did I know what I was doing?

                                                           Was I drawing out, deliberately, exposing not your vulnerabilities but   mine,
allotting power in some grand scheme, my ego trumping reason so that when you beat me to the
            punch, I never knew what hit me?
                                         Was I unclear about who I was,
                                           where I belonged, to whom?
                                            Was I tiptoeing all over lines of caution, playing with that proverbial fire,  thinking I would not be
                               burned?
Or am I so unfinished in mind, I could not recognize your own growth implosion?  Did I wrongly imagine that
                                                                               your hands could fix me, get me right?
                                                                                            Did I lie, too?
                                                                                                          Truth is, now, I don't suspect I discerned your colors,
blurred my own
 and hoped for genius.

Do you lie now or did you then? Or rather
did you tip me off?

   I fear this all but most:
             the theory
             that at
my core,
I allure the worst.
        That I give to get, not love
 but condescension , that I might agree, take stock, confirm the liar that's lied  to me from start.

Congratulations.  Your triumph, my design.  Your mental reservations seem
               a sham
                and this colorable romance, artful.
Your absence of excitability swells ironic
                               in timing and in plot.
                                     My mildness
                                                   equals your composure.
                                                             Your performance lacked grandeur.  You alluded nothing but my skill is
such that I can translate even that.
Before your wonderful came something lovely but of that you wouldn't know.  Therein, your big mistake- ignorance or arrogant assumption that there's
   no back story.
                 There's always back story.

                           So now,
                                    what keepsake should I take? That last bold denial of assertion? That I might learn that dissapointment's one thing, disrespect another?  That preparing as I did for one, vain expectations blinding, ignoring counter evidence, I unprized myself?

But manifesting now, I'll expose us both, draw man from woman self.
               

To Taste You

Every mood was set
                    with
                     wine
or beer- it didn't matter.

You tasted better, when paired with
                             warmth of spirit
                                and me - I spoke better when sipping brandy or the like.
                                And those warm, summer porch nights, remember?   Where we
                                      talked away the night, impressed by our own drunken
                                               depth of insight, a tightly woven mashup of flavors, you and I, creating      essence as the midnight hour crept ever closer,
                                 The flavors of your words, round and smooth, linger like sugar rocks dropped, popping on my tongue.  We said then that we would no doubt become better with a little time.  How is it
                       that we knew, silly and young as we were.
                                             
                                                 I haven't had a drink in years but I can still taste the evening, wet
                                                                                                                                           with rain and desire,
    smell the plum mix of cheap elderberry, hear the craving inducing call.
                                           And now.
                                                  Now, I want to taste you sober, go back, hear you once again, know                  though different, it's still the same.



Prompt from: https://twitter.com/EDayPoems
article used:http://www.localwineevents.com/resources/articles/view/857/a-roundup-of-three-pinot-noirs-from-garnet-vineyards