Tristan Robert Lange

Maria\'s Last Dance

It was in that lonely room

Maria cried,

Her Tennessee tears

Trailing

In torrents

Down rosacea-like cheeks.

That was years ago,

When the difference

Between the fog and the moon

Was as indiscernible as black and white

In that blanket of

Gloomy gray.

She then said she was dying—

Yet despite the crying—

No one could tell.

That was so many years ago—

Gone by—

Past our youthful days,

Naive and carefree,

Where we stood tall and straight

And we went to bed

Way past late.

But that August sun is gone

And here we are

In a parking lot of past regret—broken dreams—

Stuck between then and everything after.

Maria—as if in another place—

Stares blankly,

Looking upward

To the point of no return.

“I long for the free fall,”

She said, as if a ghost

Moaning morosely to herself.

“The mercurial descent—

“The ground’s embrace—

“I’ve been thinking,

Why not jump?”

She says nothing more.

‘Round here, there’s nothing to really say,

And no reason to ever play.

Feeling so pressured—under the gun—

We waste away

While we

Hesitate.

But, now,

it seems too late.

“Don’t jump Maria,”

I cry—

My Hollywood eyes

Filled with tears

Replacing stars.

But we were never stars—

We never really joined together

As constellations.

We chased dreams

We ignored Maria’s screams—

She was so pretty

At that scene—

Her Latina dances,

The life of a party

Destined to end

Emphatically in despair

Because,

Blinded, our need for validity

Outweighed—

Crushed under tons—

Maria’s soul.

“Don’t jump Maria!”—

I scream in hollowed haunt.

She’s not

even yet

up

there.

She’s still beside me—

Looking up—

And,

Tragically,

She cannot hear

A ghost who’s never

Really

Been there.

© 2024 Tristan Robert Lange. All rights reserved.