Romeo came from Borneo,
an orphan, rescued from the jungle
and a life of poverty and a mother's shame.
Those who took him changed his name.
Brown skin taped so thinly to tiny bones.
They brought him home, and
rarely ever heard him cry,
at least, that is, until the sister died
of cancer - so young, life unspent.
From her parents' arms she went
and closed her eyes for the final time.
Her spirit must have brushed his side
for they said he cried.
He howled and yowled an infant's "goodbye."
Juliet was born ill-met:
her sisters cried outside the birthing room doors.
A boy, they wanted, nothing less or more.
Their resentment and tears
painted pictures clear of the years to come.
She would ever be a lonely little one.
She was clever and precocious,
even as a babe -
desperately trying to sway attention her way.
In her high chair, she thought, "I bet if I could reach
that cup over there, someone would see
and then they would know there's so much I can do!
I mean, after all, I'm worth something too..."
She got at the cup, tiny fingers clenched tight
but the hot cocoa splashed on her chest
and her white skin puckered and popped -
third degree burns she had incurred.
'Twas the first of many a hard lesson she would learn...
Romeo's folks got the notion that he
should not be alone, so back to Borneo with speed
to the jungle and stench and destitution once again
to find for their son a couple new friends.
A boy and a girl, related by blood.
They came and they rescued these two from a flood
of violence, and death, unaware of the pain
that was etched in their bones, inherently ingrained.
They changed their names
and brought them new life.
Thrust from darkness and terror, straight into the light.
And so, there were three, meant to be family,
except that new sister could not leave behind
the pain and the fear and her will to survive...
fratricide crossed her mind
as the years ticked on.
She couldn't let go, yet she couldn't hold on.
Afraid for the life of young Romeo, and more,
new sister was painfully shown the door...
New brother remained, and the three were now two.
Yet, inside new brother, a devil's pain grew.
Juliet would wander, as soon as she learned to walk.
She whistled and sang and found herself talking
to anyone who'd listen.
Take herself to the movies, to the library, or store...
walked herself to preschool when she was just four.
Her daddy had gone, her mom wasn't there.
Her sisters, of course, never once seemed to care.
All the neighbors who knew her knew, too, she was troubled.
She acted out in ways no child should ever
be allowed in a crowd, or at home, for that matter.
But neglect had made her young soul so much sadder
and madder than other most children her age.
Her family was certain it was all "just a phase."
At the young age of eight, Juliet met her fate:
a man in a car tried to lure her his way,
as he pointed to toys overflowing in the back,
and told her to choose one from the sack on his lap.
He seemed nice enough, he smiled and was kind...
(he was the first of what would be many to try
to get their kicks off of this trusting young fool).
His wife had been her first-grade teacher at school.
She reached in the bag for the rare gift of a toy,
but found the bottom cut out, and grabbed onto his boy
parts. And thus started a legacy to come:
a girl who'd be used by men just for fun.
When they were both twelve, at that moment in time,
Romeo and Juliet, each more or less both broken inside
found each other. And, maybe, they each recognized
the scars on their hearts which they tried to disguise.
They kissed. The very first kiss of their lives.
They kissed, and caught sight of the souls in their eyes.
Too young yet to know, understand or comprehend,
the two were soon parted, yet carried on as friends.
By the end of their schooling, they had drifted far apart,
had fallen in loves and suffered broken hearts.
Romeo and new brother, both handsome and groomed
seemed as different to her as the sun and the moon.
While Romeo's beauty and the soul in his eyes
had always enchanted her, she ever despised
new brother, for he teased her and brought her to tears.
Unknowing, perhaps, that she shared his same fears
of pain and rejection, and feeling alone.
They mirrored their longings for a safe place to call home.
For as yet, Juliet, held for Romeo, her friend
a love and a kiss and a memory without end.
But new brother, she swore, would forever be
the nemesis of her youth, and her arch-enemy.
Romeo was a shy one, bright-eyed, but soft-spoken,
while Juliet's tongue and her voice were her token
to starring on stage, and commanding the scene.
With her flair for dramatics, she faked self-esteem.
The years would pass by... almost too many to count,
and their paths led them far and then near, and about
as she gypsied around and he broke out of his shell.
He was snorting cocaine; she was stripping in hell.
Romeo, as a man, had asserted himself,
had flirted his way to the top of the shelf
where the liquors were costly, but the women even more.
The diamond he'd bought was intended for a whore
but she wouldn't stop hookin'.
And so he kept lookin' for the woman
who'd keep his mind and loins cookin'.
He dabbled around, and finally found
a soul/spirit sister who eventually wound up
bearing his son... the Phoenix of his life:
from the ashes of trashes, he vowed to then rise
and embrace the glory of his first born son.
A child's spirit could change anyone....
Juliet was a fucking hot mess
in that cum-stained dress
she had harbored for years.
A souvenir of sorts that would bear her tears
and fears of living alone in this world.
She slapped on her face and strapped on her pearls
and painted the scene with her colorful voice.
Everywhere she went she'd enchant with her noise
and her sound, and her words and her brain
and her pain that seeped through
everything she would do.
The lonely desperation inside of her grew,
and she latched herself onto pretty men with good talk,
who'd fall for her face, but even more for her confident walk
which was staged, just like everything else.
She never knew love, even for herself.
New brother was floating around then, too.
Had re-met Juliet, and easily made her swoon.
They buried their grudges and cast off their pain,
and devoted two weeks of their lives to each other in vain:
'twas a shame, when he finally left.
She'd come to accept him, and felt so bereft
when he took leave from her life
never to be seen again.
She had hoped, at the least, he'd still be her friend.
But away he blew, and so she did too...
to Mexico, for years, she started life anew.
She discovered her spirit and re-met her soul,
and began to grow into the woman we would know...
Onwards and upwards, Romeo and Juliet did strive.
So different, and yet so alike in their lives
and their journeys and lessons and tithes
they did give to the people and places
they found themselves in.
He quit the whole club scene to find something more stable.
She married a man and did all she was able to do
to control her emotions and fears,
a wild bird clipping its own wings just to hear
the "I love you," she'd waited for all of her life.
Turns out, she made a most terrible wife.
Romeo was still looking for a woman to love,
and thought, once again, he had found what he wanted:
a young, pretty thing to wear on his arm.
Trouble was, after all, she was too young and far
from wanting a life as a wife or a mother.
She left him just weeks before he found out new brother
had taken his life, hung himself from a tree.
He ended the pain that had caused him to be
divided inside by his two families.
Belonging to both or to none, or for some
stupid reason he chose his own death.
Romeo's heart near fell out of his chest.
Juliet was left alone once again.
Her husband abandoned her like all the other men.
The stress and the pain of the wounds he'd inflicted
had broken her back, and she had been sickened
with grief and the fear and the pain of her life.
The doctors insisted she go under the knife.
They sliced her spine open to remove the disease
that had crippled her all the way down to her knees.
They sewed her back up, and she went home to heal
her body and mind, heart and spirit, for real.
Confined to a bed for weeks and weeks on end,
it was there where she learned of her enemy-turned-friend.
"Oh, dear God!" she exclaimed as her head set a-spin.
It was most certain now: she'd never see him again.
But 'twas Romeo, Romeo who first came to mind.
"Wherefore art thou Romeo?" she questioned inside.
The decades had passed, but she endeavored to find
him, knowing he needed her there at his side.
She tracked him down, and hobbled her way, dressed in blue,
to wrap him in love, as he hoped she would do.
She entered, they met, looking older it's true...
but their souls in their eyes were the same as they knew
way back when, when they kissed, twelve years old, back at school.
And, in that moment, she knew just what to do.
Juliet took hold of Romeo's hand.
"You're coming with me," was her only command.
She brought him to her home, and kept him three days.
She sang to his heart, took care of him, made
him eat, and sleep, and cry and talk.
She gave to him all of the love she'd reserved
for the men who walked out on her, all undeserving.
Instead of her needing, she relished in serving
the beautiful, pained, grieving Romeo.
She licked up his tears, and felt her heart grow.
And he, amazed, at this creature so fine,
lifted her shirt and kissed the scar on her spine
in a gesture of thanks, and so filled with love.
The pair of them, holed up together above
the din of the city, and the smell of the cars.
They held tight to each other, as if they had never been
parted, way back, twenty years ago or more.
They held tight to each other as new brother watched o'er them
from his celestial perch, finally free from his pain,
and so happy to see these two together again.
A tragedy shared, yet their love like a salve
erasing the wounds from the lives they once had.
Hand in hand as they stepped, heart to heart, soul to soul...
First kiss to the last pair of lips they shall know.
"You see? It was fate, that first day when we met,"
Romeo whispered in the ear of Juliet.
And she, still reserved and unsure of the risk
leapt into the void, and succumbed to his kiss.
A pair of scar-cross'd lovers, at last released from their woes...
tis the new page in life for Juliet and her Romeo.
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