redaction

I admit to being surprised to hear

that you managed to forgive her

for things of ill repute neither tasteful nor understated

nor without consequence to the innocent

Or that she agreed to meet with you for coffee at your old diner

the memory of your angry and bitter rebuke

still so painfully resonant in her ears

And that 

that affiliation was patched up

with not a little tenderness

This was a story about losing

Was it not?

I confess I was astonished

that the chance you took

against your last best judgment

Yielded some fast dividends

Particularly when the time was so perilously close to running out

That was some luck, my friend

Random f-ing chance the likes of which not seen

Since evolution of the first white American guy to make an honest dime

But this was

nonetheless

a story about losing

Was it not?

I can’t get over

the simplicity

of a transaction

in which kindness

seemed to lose you every advantage you went in with

and out you came

a pint less 

maybe more

But this was a story that

reached its losingest of conclusions

no other was in store

You still lost
Did you not?

Perhaps you missed the memo

Absent a day of school

Didn’t get the script

That explained that you were to walk this messy and broken world

A messy and broken soul

No reclamation

This was not going to end well

This was

in fact

not going to end for you at all

Unless

and I find this likely

and frightfully plausible

you had access to that redacted line at the end that everyone else missed