Inconvenience by Zeke Greenwald

There appears to be an inane assumption,
When we prize too dearly the groans people make
And their pain and complaint and compunction
Of some less tender portions of their fate;

It would seem that people don’t like the bother;
I’ve met young women afraid to leave their rooms
Because they know what a burden they are to others:
They believed too well the words others used. 

Just look at the lover who is made to wait,
Then he went humiliated home,
And he murmurs and with vehemence berates 
Himself that he ever wanted anyone;

And if in the meantime she calls him,
He’ll undertake again a Herculean 
Taxi ride, which is to say expensive,
Lest the train runs late and he keeps her waiting. 

More or less, but love is inconvenient;
I’m sure on one another’s behalf, 
Brett and Sarah, some nights you didn’t 
Get half so much sleep as you would have asked,

Then you still went to work with your fatigue,
Since it was an honor in the getting
Became just like the air we stand beneath,
But just men of science know it weighs anything. 

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