Let Me Tell You About A Life

Ken*Again 2011

—Stop or I’ll tell my mother, she told him when they were five.
—Stop or I’ll tell your mother, she said when they were ten.
—Stop. I’m not going to do that. She said when they were fifteen.
—Stop, she said when they were twenty and home from different colleges for a break.
—Stop already. I’m sore. She said on their wedding night when they were twenty-five.
—Stop. You’ll wake the kids, she told him when they were thirty-five.
—Stop. Is that all you ever think about? They were forty.
—Stop with the TV and come to bed, she said. Don’t you find me attractive anymore? They were forty-five.
—Stop. Where are you going with that suitcase? She asked when they were fifty and she had rebuffed his advances once again because she was going through the changes.
—Stop, her eyes pleaded with him in the courthouse. They were fifty-one.
—Stop thinking about those wasted years, she said as they stood with the children and grandchildren in the garden and got married once again. They were sixty.
—He was sure her idea of the wasted years was different from his—that they were their years apart. She knew what he was thinking, but her thoughts on which years were wasted were no different than his.