poem

 Meet Cute

What are you, some sort of literary type? She’s looking at my black T shirt emblazoned in white on the front with: Unreliable Narrator. I don't know about that, I said. I just like weird T-shirts that only a few people might get. And then what, she asked. What’s after that? So you’re a little honey pot for some sentient hag who has a Lolita fetish. Then what? Not Lolita, I said. Nabokov. I don’t even like him, you see? I want to fall in love with someone whose favorite authors are all mysteries to me. What are you, some kind of desperate writer or something? she asked.  Yes, I said. I’m desperate as fuck. It’s been buried so long. It burbles up unpredictably like, oh I don’t know, like molten iron. What do you write? Well, I’m sort of a poetry guy. You mean you’re a poet? Poetry guy. Just a guy hovering on the perimeter of the big poetry party, talking to no one. Ah, she said. One of those. The guy who spikes the punch. Pulls the fire alarm. Flips on the light switch when everyone else is making out. Then tells everyone on Monday how much fun he had at the grand poetry party. Oh, you weren’t there? I don’t think that characterization’s quite fair, I said. But she kept shaking her head. I know guys like you, she said. Fun at first but it always fizzles out. They think they have to create something new every single time. It ruins it. You can't believe anything they say. Which is something I wish I had said, first. Then she gave me her number and told me to forget it. When I called, no one answered. Which was a shame because I had finally decided to tell someone the truth.

8/22/26