Anger management classes that turn into basement weddings
are a lot like those desperate Friday night football games.

In one of those desperate Texas towns
that’s taken to adding a few landmines
to bring back the roar of the crowd,
the benign drug-dealers
and deformed cheerleaders selling auto-parts.

They’re the same,
in that I’d rather not be at either one
ever again.

I wasn’t even invited,
but I still have to take these things and more
and turn them into deeply personal stories.

My substantial,
useless free time is spent standing in the doorway
and assuming an earthquake might eventually
shake Richmond, Virginia out of its enlightened cowboy boots
and into the Pacific.

Although sometimes,
I’ll be in Annapolis or Seattle
and just drink enough to think
I’m in Richmond, Virginia.

My psychic ex-girlfriend laughs
until her ribs cave in,
every time I stupidly call to tell her all about it.

She tells me
that it means the stars are seriously looking
to fuck me over
when the tires burst,
and I’m out of gas
in Death Valley’s hallucinatory metropolitan masterpiece.

It’s okay. She’s probably right about that.
And about being liked when I’ve been gone for a month
than being loved when all eyes are on me,
and the chandeliers up top are meeting
the mousetraps on the floor for a compromise.

I never get invited to anything,
and it wasn’t until I learned how to live on traveling
constantly that I finally did something about it.

It’s that one summer vacation from my childhood
where every day was someone else’s two-day birthday party
all over again.

You learn to find a way in.
You work on two-part jokes
when the cops show up
and want to know
why your fiance pulled a butcher knife
on the downstairs neighbors.

It’s better to sneak in the front door,
steal some eggs for a rainy month,
seek forgiveness from the host
and remember to thank any women,
who toss you out on your ear.

You meet a lot of fascinating people that way,
and some of them even take you out to breakfast
at gun-point.

08/07/2011

Posted on 08/07/2011
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