Starry Night "Daydreaming" …[what Could Have Been? ; What W A S; Personal; First Wife; Almost Long] Poem by Bri Edwards

Last night as, on our deck, I gazed up, alone, ….at each star, …
I had a daydream of a starry night in my past, …..VERY far …away in the past.

I imagined I was in my ‘youth' (over forty years gone by) ,
and I hungered for a starry night (I never had): here's why:

I imagined I was 24 years old, and settled in a job (fulfilling) ,
I was engaged to marry (in a few months) a ‘girl' who was willing ….
to be my "love", my soulmate (if you will) , but NOT a second mother;
someone who would be there when I wished it, but who would NOT smother ….
me with anxieties (hers or mine) , nor expect from me "too much";
who would not be wanting sex EVERY night, but be responsive to my touch.

The starry night that "never was", included that same girl,
the one who was smart and kind, but could ALSO "make my toes curl".
We'd be alone in a pine forest, high up in some hills,
bedded down in a double sleeping bag..to keep away the chills,
but not under a tent or tarp. No, the sky would be our ceiling.
And we would be face-up, together, our hands clasped together with feeling.

No mosquitoes would torment us with annoying buzzing or ‘bites',
but fireflies and crickets would come and go, as we enjoyed starry sights.
And now and then when a Great-Horned Owl would call to us: "Who, who? ", ….
My girl and I would fall in love over again, …..our hearts, to each other, "true".

But that starry night never happened, or at least I was not there.
Perhaps some other fellow took my place? That doesn't seem so fair!

Instead I went from job to job till I was close to thirty;
I settled for a girl I loved (I guess) , but the ‘marriage contract' was "dirty".

She "said" (she said) I'd "have to change" someday,
BUT when "someday" came, I wasn't willing.
But, for nine ‘long' years it wasn't TOO bad, though ….we were slowly killing …..
the marriage, inch by inch.

I gave her what I had to give: a house, a baby, and a dog.
NONE of these I cared to have, but always I did slog,
trying to be what I could not be for her. [Also she was depressed, …
(from her first divorce) which helped tip the marital scale, until finally we put the marriage "to rest".]

R.I.P. ("rest in peace") was that marriage's epitaph; it's sad ….
in a way. [THEN I just kept getting married over again; it too wasn't too bad.
BUT it wasn't what my starry daydream seemed to foretell.]
I still can see stars at night, but my first three marriages all "went to Hell".

(October 14,2015)