Oh Lord the Issues |

Because Viv Is Dedicated. I Mean, DEDICATED.

April 28, 2008

And to prove it, here’s my second post for the day, to make up for yesterday’s outage-forced-pass.

When I was writing this poem, I thought to myself, as I have occasionally thought to myself whilst writing a poem before, hm. Hm. Hm. This sounds familiar. And as I kept writing the Hms got louder and louder, as the poem began to sound more and more familiar. And then I completed the poem and began to type it out and thought, Oh. That’s it. The ex-boyfriend. Of course. The ex-boyfriend of the plaid shirts and the creamed-corn-tasting breath once, indeed, did write a poem which began with the line “Were I to see you at a rock show,” or something of the like. And I froze, for a moment, thinking, Oh. Oh no. Oh no. And I debated, for a moment, the poem. I thought, perhaps, it would be best not to post it. I thought it might be best not to even type it out. I thought, I can’t take that from him. Can I?

And then I remembered that, though I have none of his possessions, he still, to this day, to this minute, to this second, has in his possession several things he took from me, including two very much beloved CDs and — AND! — a copy of a much-loved book — autographed by the incredibly fabulous and undeniably amazing Mark Doty. Other things he took from me include countless ink pens, hundreds of cigarettes, a hand-crocheted afghan, and a garden gnome I lovingly painted by myself. And my ability to listen to REM’s “You Are the Everything” without curling into a little ball and crying, crying, crying. And my innocence. There was my innocence. There was that. Oh, and my ability to have a successful and meaningful relationship. There was that. Oh, oh, and my general faith in the inherent goodness of mankind and the fact that not every person is out to screw me horribly and leave me in a shell of unspeakable numbness that lasts for months, if not years. There was that, too. Wait. What were we talking about? Oh, yeah. The poem.