“Rose colored glasses”

Rose colored glasses

We made wishes to the Autumn moon. We laid on a hill in a sleeping bag and we talked of great dreams. You were going to be a nurse and I was going to save my world. You were my beautiful Beatrice and I was your wayward man.

You were the most beautiful girl, I ever seen. I told you often.

“Andrea, dear Andrea.
Please wait for me.
Soldier seeking answers to the mysteries of our world,
need kind lady waiting.
Making home sweet and worthwhile.
My Andrea, I love your blond hair and your sweet voice.
I will pray to the moon and the stars when I am away,
for us to fall together as one.”

/

Pretty Andrea held me tighter and she whispered. “You want to see everything, you want to test life and you will forget your Hazel Park girl. Johnnie, always wearing rose-colored glasses. Thinking the world is pretty and sweet. It isn’t my love.”

30 years later. Johnnie learns her words were true. He learned the world can be heartless and lonely. He learn love can be forgotten for a wandering soldiers. He saw Andrea’s face on the internet. Still a beauty and he wondered. The what if’s? He remembered in 1980, he returned to find her and dear Andrea was off and running. He was in stalemate and he walked away.

Tonight Johnnie put on his rose-colored glasses. Drank some vodka and juice on the lonely hill. He told the moon and the stars. Johnnie is home and dear Andrea was right. We have the things we want near and we cannot see them. Love be damn and love can be so sweet. To you, dear Andrea. You are my wish and a prayer.

Coyote