psalm for the elks lodge last call

i’ve come to expect this from you, so i am not sure why i bother to call.

it has been a long time now. it is closing in on ten years. i knew you even before my heart really got broken. i knew you even before my ribcage welded itself shut.

and you say, in retrospect, that i wanted too much from you. and what i will tell you now is that you have never known what i wanted.

i hate that my tummy feels warm, feels somehow at home, when i spell out your name.

i hate the conversations we have. the conversations that are underpinned by the things that we have always wanted to prove to each other - underpinned by the values and statements that the other has always internally, but never externally, rejected.

the second that you answered the phone i knew that your latest girlfriend was there. i have never met her and will never meet her. she has long hair. she does modern dance. she is an environmentalist. she does not wear make up. she lives on commercial drive. she is mysterious. she is a vegetarian but also eats fish. she knows how to work a sewing machine. she is manageably distant.

the second that you answered the phone i knew that you wanted me to let you go. i let on that i knew that was what you wanted, but kept you on for ten minutes anyway. i want you to learn how to say what you really mean.

let me lead by example: we stopped being friends the night we made love, and, all these years later, we are still swimming in the debris.