The Road That Ends In The Sea
"Call me!" he said in a voice full of woe
On the message he left on my phone
Along with a dozen other ones I had missed
I could tell he felt so all alone.
But it had been one of those days
And my job had taken it's toll
My mind on the blink, couldn't talk, couldn't think
And he was probably just trying to be droll.
So I had listened to some of them
And the other ones, deleted
I was so tired and needed sleep
And his calling went unheeded.
I went to bed, dreams in my head
Dreams so dark and dreary
Tidal waves and things unsaved
And I woke up so weary.
Driving into work I thought
About my sweet lost friend
We'd tried to make our love work out
But it had reached it's end.
And I'd moved on, found someone else
But he couldn't do the same
He'd call me twenty times a day
To only speak my name.
"This has to stop!" I said to him
When next I saw his face
"You've got to stop this stalking me!
This is so out of place!"
"I know, I know!" he said, in tears
"I just can't help myself!
I've screwed up all of my life
And I have nothing left!"
"That isn't true," I said to him
"You've got so much to give."
"Oh, no, I don't, for without you
I just don't want to live."
I took him in my arms and sighed
And shed a tear or two
It is so sad when love goes bad
And your love does not love you.
We went our separate ways once more
And I thought that things were good
Until I noticed him hiding himself
Doing things that he never should.
He left me a dozen roses
Upon my car's windshield
Letters and song requests on the radio
He kept trying to break my will.
Showing up and showing out
In front of all my friends
They teased me 'bout my obsessed boyfriend'
And it never seemed to end.
"What did you do to that poor guy?"
My clergyman once asked
"I've never seen anyone so much in love!"
But that die had already been cast.
I'd found a love that just felt right
And seemed so good to me
We met each other's needs and yet
Let both our hearts run free.
I'd never had that kind of love
With sweethearts in my past
Some were fickle, flighty things
And some not made to last.
But when I'd met my former love
Things took a different turn
We started out on the same page
But his heart began to burn.
And burn in ways I didn't like
That gave me no reprieve
He was obsessive and so possessive
That I felt I couldn't breathe.
Our break-up was so messy
I tried hard not to be unkind
But he refused to accept the news
And I exploded and spoke my mind.
And I said things I shouldn't have said
But things that still were true
And I saw the hurt upon his face
When he said, "I still love you."
"But I don't love you, I never did."
I said and walked away
Leaving him crying on his knees in the rain
A scene burned in my brain to this day.
I didn't mean to hurt him
I just tried to protect myself
Sometimes you give so much of you
That there is nothing left.
Months passed and I started to live again
Feeling the freedom to breathe
Finding the joy and the love to employ
While he sank and continued to grieve.
Then slowly he seemed to mend himself
And I reached out friendship's hand
We talked, we had fun, a new era'd begun
But inside, he was still the same man.
We double dated with his new girl
And the new love that I'd met
And all seemed fine but in his mind
He just would not forget.
The phone calls started up again,
The letters in my door,
The cards and flowers, hour after hour
Till I couldn't stand it anymore.
My boyfriend beat him to pulp
When he showed up one night
I tried to keep the peace but failed
And they got into a fight.
The police came and took him away
As he shouted out his pain
And the neighbors watched and shook their heads
When he screamed out my name.
Shell-shocked then, I could only pray
For God to heal his soul
What kind of life could he hope to have
If I were his only goal?
They took him to the hospital
Committed him to stay
I heard that he was making progress
And hoped he stayed that way.
Until last night when I'd heard the calls
Recorded on my phone
(And though collected and calm,
He still sought me as his balm)
And I just sighed and left him alone.
I listened to his messages again
The ones that I had saved
As I ate my lunch, without a hunch
Of what I'd hear that day.
"Meet me at the lamplight," he'd said
"On the road that ends in the sea."
And I couldn't conceive and couldn't perceive
The message that he had left me.
As I sat in my car later in traffic
I suddenly began then to see
What he had been trying so hard to not say
And to discern his sad request to me.
I got out of traffic and flew so fast
To the only place I knew
Where there was a road that dropped off that way
And a place that he knew, too.
"Oh, no, oh, no." I cried out slow
As I made my way in the rain
"Don't let him do something that he'll regret
Trying to take away his pain."
The park was deserted when I got there
The park where that boy had met me
The park with the bridge that had been there so long
That it had fallen at last in the sea.
And they'd voted not to replace it
For it had only been used in the past
By a family that lived on an island
That'd been wrecked by a hurricane's wrath.
(So the road through the park
Had no where to go now
It was just a joke for the townsfolk to see
It was still lined with lamp lights
And they still lit up some nights
But the road ended there at the sea.)
I parked my car there on the road
As the rain came pouring down
I couldn't see a sign of him
I didn't hear a sound.
Then suddenly to my surprise
A light came on so bright
The last lamp post at the end of the road
Lit up the rain soaked night.
I walked in trepidation
Up to the old lamp post
Saw the note inside the plastic bag
Watched over by his ghost.
"I'm sorry," he wrote, "Won't you forgive?
I've been a hopeless fool
And you were always sweet and kind
You didn't mean to treat me cruel."
I held the note up to the light
As the rain washed away the ink
And then threw the note into the sea
And stood and watched it sink.
Then I saw the strangest thing
His shoes setting off the path
He had taken them off before he'd jumped
And the sight just made me laugh.
For those were his favorite shoes
I had given them to him, it's true
On his birthday, he'd said,
"If a girl buys a man shoes,
Then that means that she really loves you."
And I dropped to the ground and I cried
For all the ways that things shouldn't be
For his love and his loss and his life
And I knew he'd finally let go of me.
©by Voo
Feb 6, 2019
2:10 p.m.
for.......you know
partially based on a true story
of my life........
