The Return: I Was Always Kind And Generous; In Return, You Repaid Me With Thievery, Treachery, Lies, And Basic Dishonesty… Poem by Dennis Ryan

early Wednesday morning, September 4,2024, begun at 12: 30 a.m. and published at 12: 54 a.m.; early Thursday morning, September 5, 2024 at 5: 34 a.m., title, other revisions …

'You know it's just a little too late …
you've got a problem … a little too wrong … '
—JoJo, 'Too Little Too Late' (Official Music Video) You Tube Music Video

Note: Ashley Testerman has never been honest and straightforward with me in all the time I have known her. As I write this poem, she has yet to return to me four books she borrowed during the courses of three months—June, July and August of this year—during which I taught her Japanese language during the evening at several local parks here in Cary and Raleigh, North Carolina. Those four books are the following: a novel about the life of the youngest daughter of the last Russian czar, Czar Nicholas II, the Grand Dutchess Anastasia; a 300-page Beginner's Kanji Book For Reading Jaoanese; the book Breaking Into Japanese: Seven Modern Classics In Parallel Text (Japanese And English) ; and, finally Susan Jarratt's Rereading The Sophists: Classical Rhetoric Refigured. She has been holding onto these books of mine since before Saturday, August 24, 2024, when my meetings with her effectively ended, and she has refused to return these books to me despite the fact that I have asked her to return them several times over the last ten days.

I was always kind and generous with you;
you repaid me with thievery and treachery.
I provided food, your dinner every evening
we met to study Japanese language; you,
meanwhile, brought your beauty, intelligence
and an utter lack of self-confidence to the table—
at local parks, to that park bench, to high up
the trail with the scenic views of Lake Johnson.