The Scarecrow

A poem on love, but is it?

Some experiences best remain fiction
Life teaches all but feelings have no teacher
Scarcely believe it in retrospect and reflection
Though my tell-tale scars betray the truth so dire

A warm winter’s day if ever there was one
The door knocks in urgency and indicates business from without
No living soul but a pumpkin I see
A cryptic note “keep an eye on the scarecrow”

Confusing and irrelevant in the soaring high-rises
I brush aside the inexplicable message as a child’s prank
My focus unwavering from my new-found desire
Met her two days ago and I know she is the one

Her long eyelashes unwrap those beautiful eyes
A sleepy smile that sets my heart aflutter
The note forgotten in her enveloping warmth
Solid metals forged into ever strengthening alloy

Time goes by and a gnawing at the mind that will not depart
A love so perfect no more, pervades the senses
Her manner demanding and cold, I cater to every whim
Of empathy and compassion there is none

Veils of blindness slowly lift like a morning mist giving way to the sun
Acceptance of reality slinging daggers into the depths of my soul
A chance gaze in the mirror reveals a malice so pure
Shattered implosion, fear and terror fill me to the brim

She is not of this world or of any world of good and healthy
My unwillingness to delve beyond the façade of outward beauty
Makes escape futile as every avenue is shut in permanence
Metal-like chains constrict every fiber of my being in excruciating and tightening clutches

The note hits like a thunderbolt and haunts with its foreboding words
An association my feeble brain did not comprehend
Heedless and reckless in my quest for perfectness
Concealed the emptiness of the scarecrow for materialistic desire