Irony

This morning Patsy told me that before meeting me he'd "never met a woman with such a facility for seeing possible literary ironies in her own life"...

Poem 15, Irony, 20th and 26th October, 2002


[5 Ill timed or perverse arrival of an event or circumstance that is in itself desirable]

Once there was this boy
Who at the time was just fifteen.
I heard he thought I was the best
That (back then) he had ever seen.
But I didn’t know him then
And we went our separate ways,
I tried my luck with someone else
And it lasted thirty days.
Then one year later, in October
I met the first boy, now sixteen.
I doubt he said more than two words
But I thought maybe he was still keen.
One week later I’d completely fallen
I dreamt of what might be,
We sat close watching movies together
I thought that he liked me.
He took my friend to his formal
And I nearly died,
I felt so lost and so left out
I went to bed and cried.
Six months later he asked me out,
But it had taken far too long –
I left him for someone I could never have
And that was completely wrong.
Two years on, I’m at a party
And the wrong boy reappeared.
He held me close two years too late
All attraction had disappeared.
So here I sit, nearly twenty
But I’m feeling sweet sixteen.
And I miss the boy I threw away
When I was seventeen.