I’m just terrible,
just thoroughly awful
at knowing what people like.

Music at parties is the worst of it.

As far as I know,
it couldn’t get any better
than old episodes
of Theme Time Radio Hour.

I’m usually wrong.
I’m usually better off
just staying at home to drink.

But I usually go out anyway.

I spend twenty minutes or more
picking out a decent shirt
because it’s the only part of my wardrobe
that ever noticeably changes.

I put on my coat in the middle of summer.
I wish they sold Stetson hats in my size.

My cell phone is better off
being left at home to learn how
to better appreciate seclusion.

But it always goes into this little pocket
that I suppose was made for them in the first place.

If I get drunk enough,
I’m going to call the suicide hotline
and get whoever picks up to tell me something personal.

I don’t want to die,
and I don’t feel like talking
about what makes that possible.

But I do like to learn whatever I can
about people
I’ll never actually meet.

That’s how I keep myself busy
when the room is full,
too busy for introductions.

I don’t even know why I go out
on the rare occasions that I do.

I guess I’m hopeful?
Possess a good memory?

Could be.
I don’t think about it anymore.

Instead,
I think about how much I hate
waiting that last thirty minutes
before my ride rolls in.
How weird that is
when you take everything into consideration.

Think about how great it would be
to step out the door and almost get run over
by a car burning through Times Square in 1954.

Those dreams where the room is bigger
than the town I never fully appreciated.
Where everyone I’ve ever known is there,
and various love interests are finally appreciating
my better qualities over drinks
and music
and movie theater screens in front of plastic Cadillac’s.

It’s weird and pretty depressing,
but it doesn’t stop me from coming out
the front door like it’s comeback time
for the best one-man-show in history.

I don’t even know I do that.

I really,
truly don’t.

01/30/2010

Posted on 01/30/2010
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