Gift Ballade for a Long Distance Relationship
Story by Rob MacWolf on SoFurry
I must have written this at some point between 2003 and 2008, because while it was clearly meant for one of my then-long-distance boyfriend's birthdays, I did not keep any record of it myself. Husband found it in some random file backup, somewhere, along with a lot of other stuff, much of it also clearly mine, of which I have even less explanation. So it must have been written before I actually lived with him, and it must have been written before I got away from my parents and had to conceal that I was romantically involved with men, and interested in men or I would've saved a copy myself somewhere.
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I wonder sometimes if you really know
The way you make me feel in bed, at night.
The way, though I’m alone, I am not low,
The way you make my dreams all come out right.
And in the morning, in the choral light,
My dreams have gone and stranded me above
High regions where words fail and fall and fight.
There are not many words that rhyme with love.
I thought that words were what I worked with well.
I once could split a meaning clean in three,
Mix it, saute it, salt to taste, and tell
What meaning meaning meant. Now I can’t see
How I can mean what you have meant to me.
I guess I could use heartbeats, or a dove,
And things like that, soft sighed, and sappily.
There are not many words that rhyme with love.
There’s many things you know I want to say.
There’s more things that we both would like to do.
There’s something that is always in the way,
There’s something stronger, though, and I mean you.
Our friendship is unsanctioned, it is true.
Some may suspect some sodomitic shove.
Whatever. It says what I’m saying too:
There are not many words that rhyme with love.
Prince or brother, when we someday meet
You’ll understand what I was talking of.
So Happy Birthday. May these words be sweet,
Even the ones that do not rhyme with love.