I'll Never Break Your Heart

The room always stayed orange

Always had an orange light to it

Or maybe that’s just

The way I remember it

I’d sit on the couch facing the window

And, uh, my mother always liked

The curtains closed

All over the house, but--

She’d go to bed around seven

With a headache

Shortly after dinner

And I’d open the curtains

And watch the Tobler’s

Dance across the street

Every night, they’d do the dishes

Then Mr. Tobler

Would go over to the stereo

And put on some music

And they’d dance

Just the two of them

Only for about a song or two

Then Mrs. Tobler would laugh

And playfully push her husband away

And that would be that

I was fourteen at the time

And I thought it was all

Very romantic

I don’t know how they never caught me

Watching them

But our house was a little bit higher

Because there was this weird bump

In the middle of the street

And of course

We lived on the bump

I’d sit there in the orange light

Not doing my homework

While the Toblers danced

One night, I wanted to know

What they were dancing to

So I went over to my stereo

And I moved the dials back and forth

Until I thought I figured it out

It was Easy on the Ears

One oh eight point seven

With Marcia Allen-McBride

And the song was ‘I’ll Never Break Your Heart’
By the Backstreet Boys

Not exactly Frank Sinatra

But I did love that song

When I was younger

The Toblers seemed so grown-up

So adult

So happy

My father was working two jobs back then

And we barely ever saw each other

My mother ordered pizza

Most nights

And when she wasn’t yelling at me

To stop doing whatever it was I was doing

She would just lay in bed

With the tv on mute

And only her head visible

Above the covers

Nothing in our house

Seemed anything like

What I saw across the side lawn

That separate our two houses

While the rec room

Where we kept our computer

And pull-out couch

Was always orange

And static

And not quite alive

The Tobler’s living room looked warm

And comforting

And ideal for domestic living

When I turned seventeen

My mother told me

That the neighbors were getting a divorce

And I didn’t ask which ones

Because I was both terrified and sure

Of who it was

My parents were still together

And something about that

Didn’t seem right

I had stopped watching the Toblers dance

Years ago

Mostly because I was never home

Once I got my learner’s permit

The rec room with its orange light

Had been turned into a second bedroom

That my father slept in

The night before I left for college

I went into that room

While my father was doing inventory

At the packing plant

And tried to see one more time

Into the Toblers house

Just a hundred feet away

But the lights were off

And it didn’t seem like

Anybody was home

Having anticipated

That this might be the case

I put my earbuds in

And played the song…

It wasn’t the same

It couldn’t be

But it felt like a way of saying good-bye

To something

I had never really introduced myself to

In the first place