The Serpent in the Garden

It was that puppy love shit. It was that high school-teenage-first love-"sun rose and set with you" kind of shit. And that's no analogy. 

You accidentally called me your puppies name once and everyone agreed if you loved me as much as you loved that puppy, I should feel loved indeed. The verse "remember when we were only sixteen? You made me believe in god" was written for us. My day started when you woke me up early with that "good morning" text before you were off to band practice. Nighttime came early if you were tired and never came at all if you needed to just vent to someone. Enthralled and captivated by all those little "you" things. 

Your goddamn green unmeasurable pools for eyes? Of course they fucking got me to jump right in. Montana run-off.  Deep enough to be refreshing, calm enough to be reassuring. And that goofy ass smile. That goofy ass smile I could spend centuries describing: almost always accompanied by a short mischievous laugh and always half there when we made love and you looked in my eyes. I could tell by that crinkle between your nose and your eye if it was genuine or not. See why I'm caught up on this shit? It's the stuff of fairytales. 

Of course it came to an end. And I didn't have those pools of eyes to just fucking push my head down and drown myself in. I had the backlight of a shitty laptop and an uncomfortable swivel chair in the middle of the family room. 

That loved puppy turned to abused junkyard dog as the confusion of emotions brought down the blows of reality. Eventually the teeth came out and not to reveal a goofy ass smile of my own. I tried to disembowel your heart so it couldn't keep shitting on mine. But, puppy or junkyard dog (somehow you kept me guessing) I always came back to the vomit to lick it up. And just like that you healed while I ate whatever you spew. 

I don't know what day it was. I don't know if it hit me in the morning or I just woke up and that 30 seconds a day my brain had been dedicating to you for so long found something more amusing. Maybe it was Jesus, maybe it was Sarah McGlaghlun, but either way I realized I was saved. 

So I took that shit. I gave it to the earth. The garden it grew made it almost worth it. I got more sun. I spread my roots. I yanked the weeds. And I noticed you in there soon enough; the stripes and the forked tongue gave it away. But I wanted you in there. Admire my garden! Look at the colors! Find me roses that blood red anywhere else. Find me a Forget-Me-Not with a sadder blue. Look at the fruit! Adam and Eve couldn't have done much better.  Look at what I did with your shit! Look at how that sludgy green pond scum fed the tadpoles!

Ever the clever one, you admired my garden. I let my defenses down. And you bit my heel. But we all know the woman will crush the serpents head.