There’s a little yellow house
With tulips in the yard,
Home to a pair of dreamers
And an angel on the way.
One of them’s a teacher.
Her husband is a bard
Who sits at a computer
Making problems go away.
The echo from a timeless love
A love that first began
When she asked him to talk about
His “perfect five-year plan.”
There’s a little library
Inside that yellow house,
A studio where students come
To learn the clarinet,
A kitchen big enough to please
The more attractive spouse,
And two young hearts forevermore
As full as they can get.
They’re thinking of the day he said
“I want to be your man,”
The first of many steps within
His perfect five-year plan.
You’ll never hear a hateful word
Be spoken bu them there.
They never let an apple sit
On any empty chair.
They smile at every photograph
Hung on the family wall,
But they won’t say what happens when
The captain comes to call.
And when the five year plan was done
And the house was home to four
He’d renew the five-year plan
Another lifetime more.
But there’s a little yellow house,
For-sale sign on the lawn.
It never was the home for them
The bard had counted on.
Turns out a five-year plan for two
Won’t work with only one
No matter how much someone cries
When they know that it’s done.
The perfect lifelong five-year plan
In three months was complete,
But when you love someone that much
You can’t call it defeat.
The sun still shines, the waves still crash,
There’s still a dusk and dawn.
The leaves are green, the rain is wet,
His eyes are nearly clear.
Just like the clouds that once were grey,
His heart is moving on
From yellow houses, unborn kids,
The teacher, and his fear.
The one thing he won’t leave behind
And knows he never can
Are memories that came to life
Thanks to a five-year plan.
The Daily Travesty 