Angela-Dellamore

She has no right to complain After all, people have it worse than her (Smile at me) There are people without jobs Without food to eat Without places to sleep (Touch me) Everywhere people suffer Sickness and disease War and death (Kiss me) She wants for nothing Almost nothing (Love me)

      I remember what she told me, that she had only seen a firefly once, a lone blinking light on a New York City Street. As I talk to her on the phone tonight, I watch the fireflies blink past the trees and suddenly remember a summer night when I was about eighteen or so. I had slipped out the house and done something that I had never done in my childhood; catch fireflies.     Sometimes it seems to me that I matured too soon, and am only now experiencing childhood joys.     I ran through the backyard, catching fireflies in my cupped hands and wishing upon them before I let them go. I don't remember what it was that I wished for now.  

     I've always been good. It's who I am.     Employers soon find out that they can ask me to do just about anything and I'll do it with a smile. And they'll ask and ask and ask until I stop smiling, but I'll still do what they tell me, so it doesn't matter.     I've always been good. It's who I am.     I tried to fit in at church, tried to live up to the ideal. I baked with them, knit with them, sang with them.  I made myself unhappy for two years, trying to please them. It wasn't enough, it was never enough. I cried. I was angry. I stopped trying.     I've always been good. It's who I am.     My heart is out there for anyone to h

     I see her sometimes and think, 'There's my girl,' and smile. But it's a pretty lie I tell myself, for she is not mine, and I am not hers. I am not her prince, come to take away her princess. I'm her best friend, and there are no friends in fairy tales, just brothers or sisters or lovers, I've noticed. Still, everyday I smile, and do my best to believe the lie, if just for a little while.

     I'm not supposed to miss her, she says. There is still the phone and the internet, and besides, she'll come back someday. Except 'someday' almost sounds like 'never' when it falls from her lips. Still, I smile and I wait, a princess in a tower longing for her prince.     The other morning I rolled over in bed and I could still smell the faintest scent of her on the pillow, and I cried because I wanted to hold her so badly. Wanted her arms around me, her lips on mine. I could almost hear her whisper in my ear.                                   "Silly girl, you forgot not to miss me."