back to this.
we separate and, for a moment, it’s like drowning.
punishing and wet.
soaking, ugly, desperate.
my neighbor’s basement floods and the pipe gushes water all day long.
remember when mine did that? remember the hole you dug down there for the sump? i do. i loved looking at you squatting in the yard, watching it all come rushing out.
a choir sings a beautiful song.
i drive to a movie date with a man i am not attracted to.
i get him a rice crispy treat at the gas station where i also buy cigarettes because you put peanut butter all over the ones i had.
clever. revenge!
this game we play – the one with no rules. does it ever end?
one of your buddies tells me he doesn’t want to marry his girlfriend but that he would have married a landlord he once had. he tells me i look just like her.
my neighbor tells me about how his dog died on monday. i tell him i’m really sorry. he zones out looking at my dog. he says it’s not real yet. i knew something was up because his car was in the driveway monday and tuesday, which is unusual. i think he works 8-4 on weekdays at the hospital. he smokes a cigarette and drinks a beer while saying he had his dog for 12 years. he tells me he had the same vet the entire time. he tells me her name is lisa and that he was once in love with her. he tells me i look just like her.
i wonder if the vet and the landlord are the same person. i wonder what they are like. if they are lovable, i must be too – right?
my other neighbor keeps milk bones in her pocket for my dog and he lights up when he sees her. she talks so sweet to him and he follows her around while she clears the snow off her car. she sneaks him extra treats when she thinks i’m not looking. but what she doesn’t know is i see everything. you know that right? that i see it all. it comes to me in dreams. it comes to me in prayer. it comes in through my mind’s eye. it slaps me right in the face all the fucking time time.
i shovel and shovel and shovel. not because i care about moving the snow but because it’s painful, and any pain other than that of your love is a welcome guest to my body. i accept it, take it in like punishment. that too. any punishment not brought on by you is also welcome.
i walk into a bar and see a guy i met in grand marais last october. it was one of the final true days of fall and he was fishing by the lighthouse while i was walking my dog down there just before sunset. he started up a conversation right away, asking me how the photo i took looked. he let me cast out a few times, but then the hook snagged on a rock and he had to cut it. i was embarrassed but he said it was cute. i’m relieved when i see him at the bar because there is nowhere else to sit and he invites me to play cribbage with him and his buddies. we play on the same team and we win. he fist bumps me and says we should get together sometime. he tells me i’m good at counting.
i don’t tell him about how obsessive i am with numbers, that i count them in my head all day long. i keep that to myself most of the time.
does it make you feel like a big man when you dismiss me in public? does it make you feel powerful to try to make me feel small? do you think you have something over me when you act like i don’t matter? it’s so elementary. try being nice next time you want to make a move that stings. now that, that would really get me going.
it’s like you don’t know me. it’s like you never did. it’s like that gas station thing my therapist said that i wrote about before. you only know the parts of me that do or do not benefit you. everything else is fluff. everything else is inconvenient. the fact i have desires, hopes, dreams, preferences, whatever… none of that matters to you.
a lot of people think i’m funny. did you know that? did you know i’m funny?
others tell me i’m smart, grounded… an enigma. did you know that? did you know i’m a real, living person?
Words 