within my attempts to remain diginified,
i have avoided you at all cost.
i have stopped listening to sad songs
and have concocted illicit fantasies
with my boss so that i might
"move on" and "get over it" and
the funny thing about denial is that
if you avoid it, if you do not try to ride the dead horse
and you embrace the elephant that sits in every room
you've occupied for the last three months,
then it starts getting easier, and
i have made myself somewhat numb
to you, and i find that i am not
looking at the door hoping you're behind it
every evening, and that i've even managed
to avoid thinking about who you're with at
every moment and if you've slept with someone else
and if it was good, or if i was better.
and i don't think about whether or not
you miss me, at all.

but someone said,
"here drink this," and i,
bottoms-ed up and had another.
i don't remember screaming gershwin lyrics
on the back porch or grabbing that man's head
and digging my fingers into his scalp or even asking him,
"do i still got it?"

i don't remember punching the wall
or trying to play guitar
and i don't, i definitely do not,
remember calling you.

but i did.
i told you that i loved you.
that i didn't care.
that i needed you to hold me.
oh my fucking God, did i really tell you
that i saw the e-mail between you
and that girl and then ask you if i was cooler
than her? please tell me i didn't do that.

but of course, my dignity has only so much weight
that it can carry and my denial can only last for a couple drinks
until my word-vomit explodes and i just HA to tell you
everything.

i wake up, to a voicemail.
you say, "it must come to no surprise that
i have to bail out tonight, but we really need to talk
about that phonecall."

did we make plans?
did we talk last night?

oh God. we did. i did.
how can i hide behind this now?
how can i say i'm doing well when
i am crying on the phone to you
while wearing a helmet and holding
my bloody knuckles in a paper towel?

i am not over you.
i want to be over you.
i want to never see you again.
i want you to need to see me right now.
i want to not have to talk about this,
and instead to dig a hole
and die in it.

03/29/2010

Posted on 03/29/2010
Copyright © 2024 Lauren Singer