brandy vogeding - deserving

We do not love people because
they deserve it, the rain
does not tap rhymes softly on my rooftop at night
because I deserve it
Your hands, warm, do not curl around my waist
your head does not bow swan-like over mine
because
I deserve it.

I didn't screw you because
you deserved it, I didn't
cry on your shoulder after because
you deserved that too
I didn't look at your sillouhette in the night
with the street lamps and the mist tumbling down around you
cigar smoke curling up from your mouth
that mouth, with its sweet wine-tobacco taste
burned onto mine and the line
of your shoulders, eyes
being green at me
I didn't look at you and decide that you were
beautiful
because you deserved it

Wind kicks up leaves and discards them like empty wrappers
people collect money for strangers
and you help girls out of their car doors
not because any of us
deserve it.

And if neither of us deserved it then answer me why
we bothered doing it at all.

brandy vogeding

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/deserving-7/