Rollercoasters

Three decades and more
I've ridden the nuptial rollercoaster,
in company of the same person,
a journey of both smiles and frowns,
life adding its own twits and turns,
facing unemployment, deaths, illness,
they all add to the scenery you share for good or bad.

Along the way, the heart still beats,
you try to remember why this thing called marriage
became the major attraction of you very existence.

Perfect and paradise are two words
with phantom meanings,
but whether it is an amusement park
or torture chamber
is based on what resides within the heart.

Something shared in tears and laughter
becomes the stare of silent acceptance,
living most or the times when a thrill comes your way,
dreading the moments when an accidents happen.

Kids, debts and duties
all weave together as a mantle of thought,
love a place you keep redefining,
compromise the storybook of reality,
anniversaries the fragile capstone of one's glass house,
built upon a foundation of I do.