He was Shakespeare,
she, greeting cards.
She saw in him,
a man who took himself too seriously,
even as he saw her as a woman
who didn’t take herself seriously enough.
He exposed her to words
that meant something,
even as she exposed him to words
that had once meant something
to someone
on their best days &
on their worst days.

She was finishing school,
he, vocational.
She made rumors people used
for the detriment
of their pers,
whereas he made things people could use
for the benefit of them.
When she decided she wanted
to “go slumming”
by trying someone new,
he told her that he only knew how
to work with wood,
not stone.

He wrote love stories,
she, romance novels.
Each believed the other
to be inferior—
hers in literary merit,
his in marketplace value,
though they both practiced
self-love
by doing what they loved.