Connection Baggage

I walked across the college campus,
evening, ocean startling, deepening
turning darker blue
Everything that was crisp and clear was starting to smudge
I saw her, dark brown hair, head turned
a distant look on her face
I used to have that look

I rested my head against him
curled up in the rocking chair
You look so distant, he said
"Yeah, I was dreaming..." I responded
I would tell him about my dreams
daydreams
I would lay on the floor, on the pillows,
get that far off glazed look
"You were drifting again," he said.
Not mean-like,
sorta gently reminding me,
to be here, now
with him

I was drifting,
I was thinking about my ex...
How can we connect,
now
when I keep thinking about my ex?

I mentioned it to my girlfriend,
she responded, shockingly
"I said his name last night out loud,"
when I woke up this morning, he asked me
"What were you dreaming about?"
"I don't remember," she murmer'd
"What am I supposed to say?
I was dreaming about what great sex we used to have?" she laughed

I talked to a guy friend in his 20's,
he's a history buff who likes to date European women...
"Most woman have baggage," he said
"I go out with these terrible women, they have like,
8 ex-boyfriends. It creates problems.
I think relationships are hard.
In the past men and women would get marrried right away.
Now it is different.
You have to care about the other person.
I think people are inherently selfish.
There are two categories, people who care and people who don't care.
I don't go out with women who don't care," he said firmly.

I listened to his tangent. I love it when he goes off...
"If a woman called me right now,
I'd be like, see ya...
I don't care about my ex's," he said
However, I know, he chats online with them all the time...
would he stop if he started seeing someone new?

Over and over again
I remember the first time I went out with you,
"My brother worked for EA games," I said...
You hardly listened to a thing I said
I had to repeat it, later in the conversation
I didn't blame you
how could you possibly care?
we learn to not care
to be emotionally anesthetized
In your 50's, you must have done this so many times...
talking and listening
connecting and unconnecting

It's true, women do have baggage
men have baggage
so many relationships,
so many times
over and over
it seems so hard to connect through the cobwebs of the past

In the future we will have online relationship databanks where we keep
our relationship data
compartmentalized
maybe the program scripts will assess data, reformat it
we will be presented with options,
be able to pick a, b, or c
online connections are so different than real life connections
the skyline darkens into evening on campus
can I brush away the cobwebs into the night,
smudging the skyline the way it is now?