Count the Clichés

She was a flaxen-haired beauty, cute as a button, and never missed a beat.

She was sharp as a tack, but on the other hand, she had those two left feet.

She took for granted that she’d grown up in a land of milk and honey.

She’d give it up in a New York minute, but not for love or money.

Excitement is what called her name in the crack of the early dawn,

And he is the knight that came riding in the wee hours of the morn.

 

Down to earth, the salt of the sea, yet rotten to the core,

He was tall and dark and handsome, as skeletons strained the closet door.

That door was locked and years ago he’d swallowed the only key,

But in all his life he’d never encountered such a temptress as she.

He had nerves of steel but a bleeding heart that he wore upon his sleeve.

If the truth be told, he needed a good surgeon, I do believe.

 

‘Twas a twist of fate that brought them hence,

Plus the grass looked greener across the fence.

He tried to place her — her name rang a bell,

But at the end of the day, she’d never tell.

The time was ripe for impending doom

When he left a note on the sill in her room.

She was deaf to the cries of her anguished mother,

Because the bottom line is, they were made for each other.

 

They met in the meadow ‘neath the starry sky and grinned from ear to ear.

The secrets between them only strengthened their bond each passing year.

Time marched on, until one day, they tripped along memory lane;

They slid down a slope and got stuck in a rut between a rock, a hard place, and a name.

The powers of darkness get under your skin, and they’ll do anything to last.

He opened an old wound cut and dried, and in cold blood he dug up the past.

 

By this time the bloom was well off the rose,

And the green-eyed monster stuck out its nose.

With a face so nasty it would curl your toes,

It was surprisingly fluent in purple prose.

 

That man of hers fought tooth and nail, with blood and sweat and tears,

But the damage caused had gone too deep and on for too many years.

 

He hurled insults like they were going out of style,

And he tripped the beast, went the extra mile.

A punch and a kick and a pinch and a puncture —

To make a long story short is past prime at this juncture.

 

“Let’s call it a day, with the walls closing in. I’ve got work tomorrow and you’re ugly as sin.”

“You’re a pain in the neck and faint-hearted to boot, but if you go away now, then I’ll follow suit.”

 

Easy as pie and a piece of cake, that green-eyed monster went on the take.

It popped a vein and bent right out of shape, and that’s how it made its great escape.

It took off like a shot down the street toward sunset,

The day lives in infamy, not to forget.

 

A new day had dawned by the time all was over,

But she gave her brave lad the old cold shoulder.

She was bored to tears, near bored to death,

Near dead as a doornail and out of breath.

He has now gone ballistic, broke, and postal,

Out on the lam, coast to coastal.

 

It stands to reason and goes to show

There are just some people you’ll never know.

 

In one fell swoop with a sigh of relief,

She closed the door to a wave of grief.

She realized her secrets would not keep her warm,

Meanwhile his skeletons danced up a storm.

She sought him out, not savoring the surprise,

Her stomach in knots full of crushed butterflies.

What she found was a glimmer of hope and a twinkle in his eyes.

 

Lost in love way up to their necks, they stockpiled their weapons of choice–

An axe to grind and a bone to pick and a selection of tones of voice.

 

The moral is if you judge a book by its cover and let it sway,

You can bet your bottom dollar that there will be hell to pay.

The truth of this whole matter, I am honestly sorry to say,

Is that the two lived happily ever after, forever and a day.