Just Keep Going

That first night
after I moved out,
minutes dripped
faucet-like,
agonizing and slow,
and I kept thinking
“she’ll call,
any minute now.”

By the 11 o’clock news
I was resigned,
eyes red and puffy
and I play-acted
normalcy,
pretending to sleep,
realizing this new
world would take time
to become mine.

The brief, pathetic life 
we’d made 
you traded away 
for the White guy
who made more money 
than me,
and his promise 
of a fantasy life 
and left me prey 
to another woman,
who wore evil intent
like her body splash.

She was also 
looking for someone 
to fulfil her fantasy life
and she thought she’d found it
in me,
but I was just 
numbing myself
with her attention
and her pale, freckled bosom.

That ended badly as well,
but she wasn’t going to be 
a victim,
and she accused me 
of rape.

That was 1994,
and again,

time did its 
predictable thing:
it just kept going.

One day to the next
like the waves on the sand
ever repeating,
ever repairing
ever after.

Time 
just kept going, 
no respecter 
of people,
nor pressure,
nor pain,

and there I learned
the lesson and the secret 

to making it through
that hellish year:

just like time,
just keep going. 

[Posted for https://dversepoets.com/ - prompt: from a place of pain.]

My Vietnamese Ghost Bride Confesses

My Vietnamese ghost bride
from 1994
confessed
through a dream:

“Yes,
you followed the rules,
kept your promises,
waited years,
but I was
bound to betray you.

I’m sorry,
but neither
your scrawny penis
nor puny
credit card limit
could satisfy
my avaricious
vagina.”

[For Dverse, you know, right there: here]

Her Wedding Prayer

As she stuttered
her vow
“for p-p-poorer,”

she prayed
the semen
of the man
she eventually left me
for

wouldn’t
trickle
down
her
white-laced
leg.

[In commemoration of Black Sunday, February 13, 1994, wherein yours truly plays the part of the Biggest Schmuck in The Universe.]

Phone Transcript, November 2, 1994

"Listen, motherfucker
I know
what you did
and I'm going
to kill you.

Don't act
like you don't know
who this is!

I know
what you did
to my wife,
you took her
to your house,
laid her
on the bed
and raped her!

I KNOW
WHAT YOU DID
AND I KNOW WHERE
YOU LIVE
AND I'M GOING
TO KILL YOU!

I'm from the East
and you know what we do
to guys like you?

All's I'm saying
is you better
pack up and
leave town.
I know where you
live!

I HAVE A GUN
AND I'M COMING OVER
TO SHOOT YOU!

I KNOW THE
DAY YOU DID IT!
SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE
SHOPPING FOR
MY BIRTHDAY PRESENT!

All I'm saying is
you better leave town
and find another job!

YOU RAPED
MY WIFE!
I'M GONNA KILL YOU!"

Be Careful What You Ask God For

I asked God
to give me an experience
to write about,

one to illustrate
the human condition,
visceral and exciting,
to make my writing
sail through the blank pages.

Be careful what you ask God for.

So when
the hell broke out,
and Lauren left me
for another man,
I asked God for
something
to take away the pain,
and along came Kim,
and with
a giggling acquiescence
without a struggle,
she disrobed,
and climbed upon
the dessert cart,
naked and splay-legged,
and invited me
to partake.

And take I did.

Be careful what you ask God for.

I thought I could
talk my way out of it.

If her husband
ever found out,
I'd just deny it.

(yes,
I know, I know.)

But when he called,
three months later
screaming and blood
furious,
(she told him
I raped her)
telling me he was
going to shoot
my balls off
and he knew where
I lived,

the police told
me to go into hiding
until they could
calm him down
and I could get
a restraining order.

So, as I began
recounting
this sordid tale
I realized,
that I was writing about
the human condition,
visceral and exciting,
I just never guessed
it'd be for
a police report.

Be careful what you ask God for.

"Yay, Fullerton!"

We were transfixed,
watching the
slow-speed chase
that Friday afternoon
in 1994.

A white Bronco,
an unlikely center of attention,
carried
an even more unlikely
murder suspect
who held a gun
to his head
threatening
something,
as his narcissism
would not allow
suicide.

From our
Southern California
living room,
my Pop and I
watched
as the newscopters
followed O.J.
from Mission Viejo
north to Irvine,
Santa Ana,
Anaheim

and as if on cue,
we both looked
skyward out of the
sliding glass patio door
and saw the
tiny army of helicopters
that was taping the chase
from above,
the chase that was beamed
to the world
and to our living room
in Fullerton.

We smiled
and cheered,
not for O.J.,
but because we felt
a perverse pride
that our modest hometown
was part of this
huge,
ludicrous
news story.

“Yay, Fullerton!”

It’s still one
of my favorite memories
of my Pop.

Raincloud

It all seems so important
when you're standing in
the eye of the storm
with sweet memories
love songs
and heartbroken promises
blustering about you.

Instead of looking in the mirror
and asking "why me"
look at his picture
and say "poor fool".

The world is full of willing suitors
who would love to twirl you
under the starry sky
and coax out your honeyed laughter.

Every moment spent in regret
is another mile away from
the joy of the moment.

The unrequited,
the painfully knowing among us,
who make promises
to the unanswering moon,
who believe in the happy endings
of countless black and white movies,
who have loved only
to not be loved in return,
will value your worth
and give you, in kind,
the love you crave
the love you need.

The unrequited know love in its most
unashamed and unguarded expressions,
from its enveloping warmth to its prickly cold.
Although the scar is permanent,
and it gives the unblemished heart
the nobility of experience and character,
the pain is temporary.

I empathize with the sad young girls
with their precious broken hearts,
for I too have often sold myself cheaply
for crumbs of attention.

And with each day that you
walk through the pain
the end of sadness gets
closer
and the memories are less tortuous
and the rejection is less acute
and the new doorways are more inviting
and you wrap yourself in the
illusion of tomorrow just to endure today
and you pin your hopes on a thing called
Better:
"things will get better"
"someone will love me better"
"my outbursts of uncontrollable crying will get better"
"food will someday taste better"
"someday, I'll be better".
When the wounds are fresh
you can't imagine they'll heal.
They will,
and all the things that were magical before
are now merely empty reminders,
so let them go.
Yesterday got you to today
and today will get you to tomorrow
where your heart will dance again
and your eye will be unexpectedly caught again
and song will spontaneously flow from within again.
To wish for yesterday
is the folly of the lovelorn.

Make up a new set of prayers
to be answered.
In the meanwhile
treat yourself royally
be brazenly extravagant
eat what you want
dress how you feel
go out every single night of the week
and kick up your heels.
Do what you must to duck the grief
and cushion the initial shock.
The pain will be waiting for you
when you are ready
to deal with it.

In all likelihood
your beloved will return
contrite and almost pathetic,
and regrettably (for him)
it will probably be too late.

And you'll know you're moving forward
when your favorite love songs
evoke wistfulness instead of tears
and the solitude of Sunday mornings is
more tranquil than lonely
and old photographs of the two of you
bring knowing smiles
instead of frenzied plans of reconciliation.
The hope is that
someday the memories you've shared
will be divorced from their tragic endings.

Your presently broken heart
is simply a reminder of how
everything changes all the time.

Roses grow, bloom and wither.

Rainclouds come, release and go
leaving even more beautiful
blue skies and cotton clouds
in their necessary wake.

On this spinning blue planet
there is always sunshine
sometime
somewhere
someplace.

Go find your sunshine
and bask in it.

[Posted for #OpenLinkNight at dversepoets.com - where even a misfit like me can find poemlove.]