Double Entendre

Love is just a game to you
I am just game to you.
Your voice a double entendre
You say what you say
And something else.

I feel hunted
on the animal preserve,
The home I once felt comfortable in
It has become a free for all
You with your rifle
Me with my reflex.
I do not act based on calculation
rather I react on instinct

I move quickly.
Any moment you can fire
Any moment you can take me home
Mount me
Taste me
Wear me
I have to be quick-witted
Or else you'll take advantage
of my mortality

I'm the stag already captured
I make a mess of the living room while
you're away,
Hunting.
Your stag is at home
but you hunt anyway

Redundant newness

You've done this before
said that before
worn that before
Ah...
But now it drapes over you in a way
it has never draped over you before
This very moment.
Strip it away!
That curvaceous
Figure that I've seen
so many times before
Different!

Everything about you is different.
Fresh new
And
Ah...
The same!
Familiar
Discoveries.

Not today though...
You're off hunting.
Everyday you hunt
Hunt
Hunt
And I wait patiently as if there is
nothing else for a stag to do.
I eat of the meat you bring me
drink of the water
sit by the fire
and pace
Oh, do I pace
Because you're out there
where I'm supposed to be
And I'm in here where
I want you to be.

You get home and track in the rain
The mud.
I know where you've been.
I know that smell,
You haven't been working late
You've been searching
for a reason not to come home
You won't find one out there
You make up your own reason
and the search is enough,
The hunt is enough.
You're a thrill seeker and
I'm...

Well...
I'm dependent.
If I wasn't then I would be hunting too
But I've been taken from the herd
an addition to this place.
You've turned me into a
Metaphorical rug.

You can't tell me I'm not in love
because you don't know yourself
You say you're in love
but you only hope you're in love.
Your heart is a double entendre
You love who you love
and someone else.

I caught you red-handed.
No need to back away, Elmer Fudd,
No need to act like you didn't see it coming.
You think I don't know the smell of my own kind?
You think I don't know what you've been up to?
I might only be game to you
But this is no game to me

While my love was a gift for nothing
yours was a reward for hard work
So you've grown convinced
if you work harder
your love shall be greater
Problem is,
while some of us are out in the rain
shooting at shadows
The rest of us are cooped up inside
waiting for shadows to return home.
And the fact of the matter is this,
the more you look
the less I want to wait

Don't think I'm going to hang around
if you mount others beside me.
It's not right
And it looks bad too.
To have two stags hanging in the same house
I won't go for it
I won't accept it
You may have found me
and you may enjoy my company
but that company goes away
when you're enjoying the company of another.

You can't sit to dinner with your elk
and have venison steak
with your wine.

I'm not asking for the world to give me happiness
I don't want a mansion on top of a hill
I don't want a big ol' boat
or a big ol' front porch
on my big ol' whatever
I just want my sweetheart to come back home
to me.
If she doesn't I might have to chew through this
leash and tuck tail
on out of here.

But I know she'll be back
She'll come back so long as I don't make an ass
of myself
She only hunts when I'm an ass
so I've got to be more willing to take out the trash
do the dishes
and have food ready when she gets home
She won't feel the need to be up and running
hunting
bringing home deer meat.

We'll wrap ourselves in a quilt
together
And we'll agree that the outdoors...
not a good place.
But in here,
By the fire
It's perfect...
And she doesn't need to go out anymore because
she will never again grow hungry...
Because her lover
is uncooked venison.

Don't confuse my words, now!
This poem is a double entendre
It means what it means
And something else.