Jaden Massaro, The Keystone State

The Keystone State

JADEN MASSARO As a little girl growing up in the Keystone State, My dreams were on paper and I was willing to wait For a house with a terrace and flowers in pots, And someone to share it and to share my thoughts.

My dreams were coming true in the Keystone State. He was chasing rich thrills, but I didn’t mind the wait. In the monotone days, laughing with you was like color; I sketched a black and white future with a terrace and no other.

I kept on dreaming of flowers in the Keystone State, I kept sketching our future and started counting the date. We’d paint the town red, I’d walk the aisle in white, You would smile from the side and… it would all be alright.

But the ante was up that night in the Keystone State. When you went all in, I realized too late. For three years I had been betting on just enough, And by folding your hand, you had called my bluff.

I stopped the bells and the ring in the Keystone State, But you’d left and come back with a flush and a straight. She was an ace in the hole and I had been out dealt, So, I walked red hot coals to tell you how I felt.

I redrew my dreams in the Keystone State, And I finally saw why they’d seemed second-rate.

All of my paintings had someone else in them; I put them up for the highest bidder to win them. But when I opened my eyes, you had always been there, Waiting to sit so you could pull out my chair. Only ten feet away, you waited years and miles, Looking over your shoulder to share a smile.

I was so busy dreaming, I overslept the train. You could have taken it, but you waited out in the rain. Now you’re here on one knee in the Empire State, Drenched in a gas station because you just couldn’t wait. Do I want to form an alliance with you? As long as it’s forever, absolutely I do.

I wish I could tell that girl in the Keystone State To hold onto her dreams with a paperweight, Then look up from her drawing, across the room, To the life that they sketch, the flowers in bloom. The house is there waiting, but now that seems so small, Because the key was never the terrace or the flowers at all.