Found Wanting
And so she concluded
that he must have looked at her,
at them,
he must have taken stock and
added up the pros and cons and
made up some rules that
she didn’t know they were
playing by
and he calculated the score
and he maybe made some columns and
put hash marks,
four in a row, then crossing the
four out with the fifth
and when he added up the hash marks and
the pros and the cons and the tangibles and the intangibles
and the things he wanted and the things she had and
who he was alone and who they were together,
when he did all that,
and leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling,
hands folded together across his stomach
and the truth of the whole thing descended,
it must have been to his great surprise,
at least she hoped to his great surprise,
that she was
found wanting.
That what she had was not enough,
or perhaps was too much;
that who they were meant that he couldn’t be
who he thought he was, or should get to be;
and that in the end it was just about the numbers,
about the math,
not about her and him and them at all.
That’s powerful.
Thanks so much – I am glad it spoke to you!
What do you do when you roll your cart up on somebody in a store, and they are deciding a brand of food to buy based on the packaging, the colors, the cartoon characters on the outside, or celebrity, and you’re watching them about to pick a zowie multi-colored package whose ingredients include MSG, GMOs, saccharin, Red Dye No. 2, monounsaturated fat, scoops of refined sugar, sucrose corn syrup, artificial flavors, fried burned oil, and a free plastic toy?
I probably mind my own business, unless they ask me what I think or they live in my house. 🙂
the point being that you would have rolled up on someone making a decision based on external appearances not internal qualities.
Beautiful… I am so happy to read your words again!
Thank you so much! 🙂
MikeW – I’m not sure I am getting your point…but yes, they would be making a decision based on outside appearances…