You'd Never Know

She's a beautiful mess

With a huge chest

An agent of functional chaos

A blonde bombshell

With a few crotch goblins

A job-searching gem

With no direction in life

No pull towards something

Except to be a great mom and to please the people around her

But the men she chooses

Are the worst kind

They take her for granted

And belittle her

Those cheating kind of men

The worst kind . . .

But here she is

In my bed again

Complaining about those men

While she lays naked on my arm

And I have just enough charm

To keep her here on my numb arm

Only slightly alarmed

By the stories of all these other men

She says she hates them all

Except for me

I am the supposed to be The Anomaly

But as I lay here with my ‘Assholes Live Forever’ hoodie on

I can't help but think

That someday she will hate me too. . .

She sits criss-cross on my bed

With a small blanket covering her

Her new boss is cutting her hours

And she thinks it’s because she didn’t go out for drinks with him the other night

Her thumbs frantically type along her phone

As she text him

So I pull out my phone

And write the first part of this poem

She notices after a minute or two

And asks me what I am doing

“Nothing,” I say.

“That’s a lie.”

“Okay, I am writing.”

“About what?”

“Nothing.”

“. . .Y ou really aren’t going to tell me?”

“No.”

“Why?”

I shrug.

“Is it about me?”

“Nope.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Okay.”

“Let me read it.”

“Nuh-uh.”

She ends up wearing me out

And I give her my phone

She starts to read it and immediately laughs out loud

“Oh my god.”

Her hand covers her mouth as she reads

She laughs again.

And then she gets quiet. . .

Tears start to roll down her face

My stomach sinks

She keeps reading

And ends it with a big sigh

The blanket slips off of her tits

“I love this so much. You really see me. But I am not usually this chaotic. . .”

She hands my phone back to me

“Why do you think I’ll hate you?” she asks me

“Because I am not that different from all the other men that you hate.”

“Yes you are?”

“I don’t cheat, but still. . .”

“You aren’t the asshole that you think you are.”

“Everyone keeps telling me that lately.”

“I get that you were this fighter, but you’re a good guy now.”

I stay silent, not sure what to say.

I don’t want to tell her about all the other women that I see. . .

We fuck again and talk for another hour

Before I take her home

She screams when the second song that I play comes on

“Is this Evan Horner??”

“You know Evan??”

“He’s my favorite right now!”

“Mine too.”

“No one else has even heard of him!”

“Yeah.”

“Dude. . . this is so crazy!”

I can’t help but smile.

“Do you know this song?”

I play another one for her

“I love this one too! Pull over and park.”

“Huh?”

“Let's listen to music together for a while.”

“Okay.”

I park and she plays a song

And then I play a song

And even though she is chaotic mess

I really dig her

And this moment

Is a really nice one

“You need to be in love,” she says.

“Huh?”

“But you won’t be vulnerable anymore, will you?”

“. . . I don’t know.”

“You need to open up to someone.”

“I try to.”

“No you don’t.”

“The problem is that the people that I choose don’t choose me.”

“Someone will.”

“Maybe. . .”

I drop her off at her Ex-boyfriends house

Where she lives right now

And drive back home

And I sing Evan Horner songs on my way home

And even though his songs are sad and deep and very relatable

I sing them with joy.

CH 3/14/24