velveteen

what you have
at the beginning of love

is two constructs
made up of a collection of shards
of fiction, hope, and where appropriate
a few from the real subjects
of the proposed relationship

if successful, some of the real
attains to the hopes, some of the fiction
turns to fact, and some of both the hope
and fiction are dropped in favor
of the glory that happens when rubber
meets road and actual distances are traveled
that were heretofore
unforeseen

and what you have at the end
is
anything but velveteen