Love Poetry: The Dress

by Audra Peister
(Littleton, CO, United States)

'The first time I wore the dress
I knew it was for him.
It wasn’t my color,
my style...
but it was everything he liked.
I saw that in the way
he looked at me
when I walked down the stairs...
as if he was seeing me
for the first time.
It seems I did everything for him
now.
It came out in the way
I talked,
what music I listened to,
the way I dressed.
This was all for him.
This is what love does to you.
All of a sudden everything you do
matters
simply because this
one other person
has entered your life.
You do things
you never thought you would.
This is why I bought the dress.
Not a girly-girl
by nature,
a dress was always
the last thing
I budgeted for.
But when I saw it
in the store, I knew
I would not be leaving
without it.
Suddenly, the new tennis shoes
I came in for were
unimportant;
what mattered now was
the red dress,
sitting alone
on the rack,
as if placed there by him
for me to find.
When I took it in the fitting room
and put it on,
it was as if
I saw myself
through his eyes.
I saw the tom-boy girl,
always unsure of herself,
fade away
and a radiant princess
took her place.
Ever since I met him,
I couldn’t figure out
what he saw in me
that he wanted to stay
by my side.
But one red dress
opened my eyes.'

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