It’s everything you fear
modern poetry is;
Pissed off women using odd
metaphors
to hurl insults at their ex-boyfriends;
It’s not so bad;
But every wanna-be-dyke in
flannel
who got up in front of a
barely filled coffee house
on open mike night and
complained
about how he didn’t treat her
good,
even though she gives great
blow jobs,
ruined it for the rest of us
We lived together while I was
in college;
He was not in college, had no
such ambitions;
He was beautiful and he was
strong
and I loved him;
My mistake;
We lived together for nine
months
and then summer came;
And we decided, together,
that I should return to my
mother’s house,
since she paid my bills
and I really did want to
finish college;
I went;
My mother’s house was only a
few miles from his,
our, house;
I went there often;
And we had sex,
and we went out,
and I cooked dinner,
and we talked about the future,
about marriage,
about children;
And we laughed
because that was always what
we did best;
And then one Tuesday night,
he called me at my mother’s
house
and he said (and I quote):
“I’m getting married Friday.
Wanna come to the wedding?”
You’d think there would be
more to this story,
some suspicions I hadn’t
voiced,
some hints of things to come
that I could only see with 20/20 hindsight;
But there isn’t.
His ex-girlfriend came back
one night and asked him to marry her;
And he said, “Yes.”
But now, only six years
later,
he’s on his third marriage,
to yet another controlling, manipulative woman;
He has eight step-children
(two of whom where born to
his first wife while he was married to her)
and he’s only allowed to see
half of them;
And he keeps telling
everybody that he’s still in love with me-
A poem of poetic justice: how
so very apt-
And I am here to admit to the
small part of me
that takes incredible joy in
the fact that he has ruined his life;
It’s what every girl really
wants
See, now that wasn’t so bad;
No man-hating anthem full of
strange images,
from a woman scorned
to be heard at some amateur
poetry slam;
Just a tale with a pretty
good ending,
even if I do say so myself;
It’s not everything you fear
modern poetry to be
