Our calendars were rivers <br />Swollen with wedding cakes. <br />We slept through tunes like All Of Me <br />Or “All The Cheese, ” our drummer smirked. <br />But I knew I could never walk. <br />Mrs. Wing my junior high music teacher <br />Would appear before me as an apparition, <br />Breaking her baton on my stand, <br />Demanding to know what I was doing <br />Or even thinking of doing. <br />I couldn’t imagine <br />Telling her I can’t take it anymore <br /> <br />Until finally I did, <br />Because at some point you can’t face <br />One more bride who doesn’t care who you are - <br />It just has to be perfect, <br />And one day your fingers <br />Don’t want to be told what to do, <br />And one day you find the rest of the world <br />Is out by the pool drinking banana daiquiris <br />While you’re bent over the newfangled barbeque <br />Trying to figure out how to get the dam thing started <br /> <br />Now you ask if I regret it. <br />You want to know if I ever listen to the CD. <br />I tell you it is like a toy ship traveling sideways <br />After its shove onto the pond. <br />It’s Chinese food that leaves you hungry <br />But not for more Chinese food. <br />It’s an old lover’s answering machine greeting <br />That never changes but sometimes you call it anyway <br />Just to hear her voice.<br /><br />Michael Philips<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/quitting/
