From the Latin concedere, to completely yield

1999-2002

stop here and I will upsell you
a giant buttery tub as wide as a hug
a soda that weighs as much as your baby
so much candy you might puke later

but you’ll enjoy your theater experience
that much more because I suckered you in
because you yielded to your desires
and footed $25 more than what you paid for tickets

and as you hand me your card or cash
I’ll ignore the stench of BIB’s and
the slippery tractionless popcorn-filled floor
and the palm oil that permeates the air

smiling all the while as I earn my $7.50,
paying my way through college with this
thankless job, knowing that I can concede
to your audacity because one day I won’t have to.

2008-2010

my era of admission has come full circle
as step after step I tread as carefully as a crane
just like the paper ones that dangled,
pale blue and innocent, along the church aisles

now both of us have shed our naiveté
and the truth seeps from our souls
through black and white keyboards,
drunken words, and the wrath of darkness

in my mind I have seen both sides of this story
each one conceding to the other in a series
of twisted images that I can neither sleep through
nor accept when my eyes, paralyzed, pop open

yet, from this moment I recapture the past
and though I cannot change the path I led it down
I see you in the shadows as if for the first time
knowing that I can completely yield to our love.