Marry Me

There's always divorce.

 

Dear so-and-so,

 

I am so in love with you that I cannot imagine being with any other person, so I would like to place a golden fetter on the middle child of your sinister hand to keep you from ever leaving me if you change so much that you no longer feel the way you do now or if you meet someone that you fall more in love with than me. I demand you stay even if I no longer make you happy and someone else can do a better job. I care this much about you.

 

Dear so-and-so,

 

You are my better half, and I cannot imagine my half ever changing enough to require a different better half. Therefore, I want to legally obligate you to remain faithful to me and have three or four kids with you so if you ever left me you would be ruining the lives of four or five people and everyone will realize what a selfish weak-willed phony you are.

 

Dear so-and-so,

 

 I know your love will take me all the way through, and if it doesn’t I just won’t make it. Does this not make you fear that I’ll commit suicide if you don’t say yes?

 

Dear so-and-so,

 

I’m tired of my insincere sexual affairs and the masses of bland, predictable, and theatrical sardines I bed with. I hate everyone, but I hate you less. I want to make a commitment because I bored with being uncommitted, so when I think about that affair in Los Angeles with that red-head who works the swing shift at Norms I will undoubtedly refrain myself from my old ways even if I am no longer bored with them and have become bored with our commitment. I can’t ever see this going wrong.

 

Dear so-and-so,

 

I am committed to my political ideals, and I fear that if our institutions fail the fabric of society and mankind as we know it will fall apart and there will be no order and no sense of the word family and we’ll all be buzzing around chaotically running into one another like atoms until we become asexual or die out. For these reasons, and your societal standing, I would like to share a home, two.five kids a dog a cat and a bird named Rodger. And even if I grow to hate everything you stand for and I stand for and everything we’ve taught our children because I realize the sham I’ve been conditioned to believe in by my father and grandfather and even if the cat runs away and the dog dies and I often think of killing the bird there is no chance in hell I will ever ever leave you. I am that principled.

Reviews

[Aven]

it is an unusal format for a poem, but I really loved your words... how you surprised me with the line "I’m tired of my insincere sexual affairs and the masses of bland, predictable, and theatrical sardines I bed with." provocative, beautiful and elegante. well written!

[Emily B]

Something strange happens somewhere between your tenth and twelfth wedding anniversaries. Your letters remind me me what it felt like. If you don't get divorced the feeling goes away . . . I think.

[W.k.kortas]

This is what Erma Bombeck would have written had she drank vodka for breakfast and spent some time in a donkey show in Tijuana. It's dryness and wit elevates above run-of-the-mill rant and teen angst. It's fine, knowing, and wickedly funny.

[Constance]

No One has no clue.
I got this, I think.
All the excuses people make to get married that aren't quite the right reason?
All the excuses people make to remain in loveless marriages?
I read all of that in this. I love the way you put these thoughts together.
I'm not laughing.