Tough Enough / Toughen Up (edit)

Tough Guys wear jackets made of impenetrable leather,

And Tough Guys are on a first name basis with Mary –

Jane that is,

And Tough Guys ride motorcycles during the empty hours of night

Under the stars, alone,

And Tough Guys never love.

It’s not that they’re against love

At least not consciously. The leather

Jackets are just too thick to let anyone in. Tough Guys are destined to be alone

And no amount of Mary

Kay the ladies apply every night

Will change that. The fact is

Tough Guys drive fast. To? Away? Anywhere. Nowhere. It is

The only life they know – the one they made, the only semblance of love.

The cold, dark, anonymity of night

Shrouds them in yet another layer of protective leather

As they take their respective one-night Mary

To bed alone.

Solidarity. They have learned to be alone.

They are the Tough Guys, that is

A simple fact of life. But tonight’s Mary

Is no Virgin –complimentary with a different idea on life. And love?

Hers is one that thrives on the encapsulating leather

That clocks these men of the night.

Something different happened that night

The Tough Guy no longer wanted to be alone

Safety he had found in the old leather

Jacket is

Gone. Now only is love

For this Mary.

Mary, Mary, Mary

She was the celestial being that had hung the moon in the night

Sky. A last name mattered not when it would soon be His. Is this what it means to love?

Or had the realization finally struck that he was truly and utterly terrified of being alone

With only the remnants of what is,

Or was rather, his shield of leather?

“Stay?” He pleaded, cradling the diamond ring as Mary sauntered to the door. Broken and all alone,

Unsure and unable to hid in the safety of night, his latest ephemeral girl (Tina – or was it Lucy?) is

Only cheap love supplying a trip back to empty highways, Tough Guys, and jackets of thick, thick leather.