Try not to tell me about the big picture
until I’ve managed to calm down
about all the little things
that’s been bothering me lately.

And by lately
I mean the last ten years. Ever since
that time I spent every cent to my name
and traveled eight hundred miles
to find out the hard way that there wasn’t much
she liked about me beyond my telephone voice.

We used to get drunk on Gin and Tonics
by mid-afternoon and trade psychological body blows
at the supermarket. I bought her flowers,
and she would leave them in the parking lot
for all those wandering attack dogs. She held my hand
whenever rush hour took over her third-floor bedroom,
and I would call her by the wrong name on purpose.

Years have to go by,
and then maybe you can smile about it
when someone asks you
where all those great ideas come from.

When it was over
she gave me a list of things to work on
for the next time I felt like ruining someone’s life.

It’s no exaggeration
to wonder if that damn list has even more
personal history than I do.

That’s a good example of the little things.
There’s a couple others.
Four million the last time I checked
and kept my heart from busting some kind of big money
jackpot dance move
in the back of my head.

The aftermath of trying to get cute is always ugly.

Sometimes I trust everything
a loved one has to say about who I am,
where I’ve been and how long it’s going to take
to get back there again.

Results have varied and danced like a lunatic,
but it’s still cheaper than a shrink.
Safer than trusting the floor show
that visits whenever I go to sleep and leaves
holes in the ceiling big enough for the man in the moon
to fit through.

That’s even when you take into account
how big his beer gut has been getting lately.

01/02/2011

Posted on 01/02/2011
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