A Poem About Love

Snapshot of little emotions.

i feel bad for the short boys

with naked woman tattoos

and trucks with wheels

as tall as their heads because they

think that maybe a monster truck

and a sexy miniature

will somehow compensate

for the steel toe boots with

the wedges inside that they

pull off each night before

climbing into a bed that is

empty because they forget

that girls are short too

and I feel bad for the zombies

that walk in the street and

swear at passing cars because they

didn’t realize that their eyes

never move from buzzing rectangle

necessities that might as well

be their own appendages instead

of their bony hands like the boniest

hands for twiglike girls in bathroom

stalls who hope that cigarettes

and chewing gum might run away

the remembrance of

vomit off their pinkish white

tongues for which they curse

themselves and the whoredom of

the omnipotent Hostess cupcake and

make me feel for them the way I feel

for the scruffy kids who get picked

last but hold onto hope

even as the lineup narrows and fades

and the fat kid with the crewcut

scrunches up his nose and says we’ll

take him I guess the same way

he would take a free hot dog he guessed

even though he already

ate five and wasn’t hungry

I feel bad for the ones with red

sprinkle pimples and big black

glasses that spend hours at the

mirror claiming they won’t find love in

all their lives even though they’ve

only spent eleven percent of it

as much as the entire life of a dog

down the street with the shiny pink collar

who rolled in s**t and came to

the name princess that I feel

bad for since the one who

calls her is a skinny youngold woman

with rotting teeth and tobacco chew

who feeds the dog cheese crackers not

kibble so it’s fat and slobbery and

the woman’s greasy little kids kick

it sometimes and laugh and laugh

the way kids do at the boys

who play with pigtail pink dress girls

instead of red bike rebels

and pretend to get married instead

of playing video games

i feel bad for beat up Cadillac dads

and unintentional crop top moms with

mouths to feed and denials to receive

even though applications are equal

opportunity and Walmart

doesn’t discriminate against parents

whose kids got lice a few times

and I feel bad for the little beanbag

animals kicked under the bed and

and stuffed in the cracks

are grabbed ‘round the neck and removed

from their eyes and noses and buttons like the

buttons that used to be

in a grandpap’s shirt but burst

on a day after grandmaw was gone

and he’d gotten beer-bellied

and gruff in his Goodwill swimtrunks

and with his crabgrass garden

in the middle of knick knack paddy whack

white trash stray cat streets

where in one ear is Sally come home and

what the f**k a*****e and don’t play with

the lawnmower and in the other is crash bang

don’t you talk to me like that woman

and giggle giggle stilettos on the tar

when was there a time when somebody

somewhere didn’t ache for somebody

somewhere at the wheel out the racing window

but in five minutes forgot and

went back to eating a double cheeseburger

or a five dollar latte gasping at the news

before turning the channel back to

beat bop autotune country folk singing

about small towns and hard times

 

Reviews

[barleygirl]

This is brilliant! This is the poster child for how stream-of-consciousness should be done. Even tho your style sounds rambling, it's packed with meaningful observations about life, & I can feel the true empathy being conveyed here. I love the way you do not varnish your descriptions, leaving them raw & ugly at times, but not overdone with drama. I'm highly impressed & also inspired . . . I want to try doing something like this someday. But I'll probably just stick to my usual regimented style! Thanks for taking me for a walk on the wild side of written expression (((HUGS))) fondly, Margie

[49k_jdys]

Wow! thank you so much!

[David-Tyler]

I'm sorry, I tried to read, but the format made it too hard. The font runs together too much for me to read.

[49k_jdys]

Thank you for trying! It's kind of experimental in a way, but I'll consider trying to make it more readable!

[Paul Bell]

I have this image of you in a small town.
Drinking coffee in the local coffee shop.
Watching life go by.
But you're dissecting life as others actually live it.
This is quite sad in a way. But it's real.

[49k_jdys]

I so appreciate the sentiment. I kind of feel that way sometimes. Except most of the coffee places around me are chains so it's not as quaint :)

[Paul Bell]

Whatever happened to the independents.
Chains definitely lack character.