Here Comes The Bride- A Song of Jealousy

A dress of white, a rose of red,
The blood of the innocent spread on guilty sheets.
A very sick patient doomed to be bled.
“Sit back down, objective observers, please keep your seats!”

I stand to the side and watch in distaste,
I catch the bouquet yet again and smell of still-pretty dead flowers.
I drink of rancid sugar punch, laughter-laced.
My smile is firmly in place as my soul inside sours.

La di do dah, I’m not really here.
My tears wet my dress but don’t show on my face.
The rustle of bright taffeta, so ironically sheer,
Follows my metered steps as I lie in silence haste.

I hate weddings but I might like my own.
I want to cry, I want to scream, I want to run away…
I’m reminded of silly Valentine’s Day and how I am alone,
I wish I were not here but I have no choice but to stay.

“I do”—promise to set my goals aside and bare two point three.
“I do”—promise to let you be the star.
“I do”—promise to fade into the middle-class, soccer mom, ambitionless sea.
But what if I would rather live my dreams and worship you from afar?

I adore you and I always will, your closest, dearest friend,
But the kindest thing I can do for you is to unnoticed, calmly walk away.
I’ll see you in a few decades, my love to you I send.
But I’m not sure there is anything left for me now to say.

Kiss my cheek and believe my polite smile.
I’ll promise to visit but I’ll never come.
“I’ve been replaced”, my heels click out on cold mosaic tile.
Our parts do not make one but rather a larger sum.

“So why am I here?” I ask myself and roll my red-rimmed eyes.
Because you are my friend, my first love, the one that got away…
But I really don’t care; I’m even angry at myself between sighs,
And if you ask I will swear to God that “really, don’t worry, I’m okay!”

“Here comes the bride” I hear played with flourish,
And I realize an era, a lifetime, a friendship is now gone.
I wonder now if you’ll come back for more, with an ego so well nourished,
But what you don’t realize is that I see your plan…to you I was just a pawn.