I Failed Him and He Failed Me

I saw this poem the other day. The title grabbed my attention:

I Failed Him and He Failed Me
by Katie Ford

I failed him and he failed me—
Together our skinned glance makes a sorry bridge
For some frail specter who can't get through.

I failed him
but maybe it was the lamp that failed,
Maybe it was the meal,
Maybe it was the potter
Who would not intervene, maybe the clay,
Maybe the plateau's topaz, too steady to help,
Or was it the meat cut two days late, was it
The deciduous branch and its dull wait for bloom—

But I remember the small thing rotating in us
Towards hunger, how it did not fail to guide,
And that we made no request of our souls or all souls
Or the one perfectly distant soul
and so did not fail in what we did not do,
Never begging at the sky but moving
On the islands beneath it, hungry together by its rivers and bones.

Who told us we had failed
If not the human world gone wrong?
It was the world?
Ah, then we will fail again and again in the waters apart,
Bridging nothing, bridging nowhere
Towards what we, failures, are.

I decided to write my own version. Although the title is the same, I think the meaning of it is very different, maybe even opposite.  But I'll leave that up to your interpretation.

I Failed Him and He Failed Me- by Tasleem

I failed him and he failed me—
Destroying castles built over sands of many lifetimes,
Every grain swooped away by a single wave.

I failed him,
but maybe it was the lamp that failed,
revealing hidden strands of silver hair
or tiny wrinkles around my eyes

Or maybe I wasn’t perky enough or curvy enough,
Tanned enough or exotic enough.
Tummy wasn’t toned enough, or I didn’t jump high enough in the air.

Maybe it was my lack of strength. What did he call me? -fragile?
Or was it my free spiritedness,
"Which I know everyone loves’, he said, "but wouldn't fit my parents’ ideal."

He failed me
with his loving the sound of his own voice.
Those fabricated tunes, and repetitive chords
he played over and over were such a bore.

I stared at the guitar strings, wondering,
where the guy I had dreamed up had gone
-the one whose every note I had hung upon.

"I know the perfect place for ice cream," he said.
"Don't worry. We'll have fun."
But instead he left a bitter taste
I am still trying to wipe off my tongue.

He failed me,
At our first dinner at a fancy restaurant,
when he asked not once, but twice, to test out different wines,
as if we were still at the ice cream parlor,
and wine cost only a dime.

The waiter gave an impatient glance, 
I didn't know whether to laugh or run.

"I'm just really broke," he said during dinner,
while he sat taking photos of me with his new 1200 dollar Nikon.
"That was a good shot," he said. "It's the camera," he smiled.

Of course it is, I thought.

"I would love to take a girl out for a nice dinner," he explained.
And then preceded to describe how she'd walk, and talk and what she'd wear.
I think she had curlier hair than I did, and a sexier stare?

"I'll pay," he said.
"No, I got my part," I answered, shaking my head.

I failed him,
running across more than a country to see him
while he looked past me, as if blind.
But I continued to believe in him,
begging him for his time,

while she gave him none of hers.
-she just licked her lips, and strutted those hips,
which he decided to chase instead. 

I failed him.
giving too free, laughing too real, loving too strong,
I failed him, choosing him over me.
I failed him. I failed me.

© Tasleem