I have come to see romantic love
as a bad investment of one’s heart.
Along with the initial euphoria that
doesn’t last,
at some point, weeks, months
or years, the love may not last.
And like a bad investment with money,
you’re squandered the currency of your heart.
Bob Boyd
From what I read about a theory
called False Vacuum Decay,
if it is true, the universe could
vanish in a moment.
Everything, you, me, planets,
worlds, countries, oceans, gone.
Sure, it sounds terrifying, but I
see it the same as dying.
Like the universe being gone
in a moment,
in a moment the you, that
you identify as, is gone.
And I’m okay with both,
the universe or me
vanishing in an instant;
maybe because
I’ve lived a long life,
and I’m good with dying.
Bob Boyd
Sometimes he sees them in dreams,
wakes up thinking they’re with him alive,
the spirits of his deceased parents.
It’s a curious thing, and he wonders
if he’s really seeing their spirits in dreams
or just occasional illusions.
Bob Boyd
When he was married his wife
interfered with his decisions,
led him down one way streets
and dead ends,
became selfish, argumentive,
left him for men with more money.
When she was out of his life
and he was rid of her,
he and his decisions were
finally liberated,
and he found peace and
happiness without her.
Bob Boyd
He had a dream of a woman
he went out with decades ago.
In the dream she’s interested
in him again
although she left him
for another those decades ago
when he was a teenager
and had only dated her briefly.
In the dream common sense
is abandoned.
Instead of an old woman now,
she’s young again.
He wakes up lost in the illusion
for a moment.
Then he wonders why he had
such a foolish dream.
Bob Boyd
How can love,
euphoric at first,
gradually lose its
allure?
Why does that
elated feeling
eventually wear
off
when love gets
old?
Bob Boyd
His wife left this world
at age 50:
breast cancer.
He believes her
spirit lives on
because sometimes
she’s in his dreams.
She never speaks
to him
in those occasional
dreamworld visits,
but she always looks
serene and happy,
and he’s sure she’s
in heaven.
Bob Boyd
They’re nice at first,
charming, delightful,
disarming.
Chameleons with
dark sides hidden.
After you’re in their
control,
the monsters they
really are
mentally and
physically abuse
you.
If you’re smart,
you leave the first
time they hit
you.
Otherwise, if you
stay with them
the day may come
when they kill you.
Bob Boyd
To his neighbors
he was a kindly old man.
Always friendly, a good
person, a nice neighbor.
But when the police brought
him out of his house in handcuffs,
the neighbors were shocked to
learn he’d raped and murdered
a teenage girl when he was a
young man in an unsolved crime
that thanks to advancements in DNA,
he finally got apprehended for.
Bob Boyd
She’s young and beautiful.
feels she’ll be that way forever.
She’s caught in the illusion of eternal beauty,
trapped in a prison of self adoration,
until the years begin to cruelly erase her illusion,
and the men stop looking and calling,
and she’s no longer the prize they all
longed and sacrificed for.
Bob Boyd