poem of the day 07.10.09

new kinds of love

i left the computer repair shop
after the tech gave me
instructions
about how to back-up my system
should a virus
hit my machine again.

i was listening to him
well
half-listening
really i kept glancing
over at the machine
sitting on a bin with a white tag
on it
it looked cleaned on the outside
like an old battle horse
that had been give a bath
and a chance to rest

i thought of all we’d gone
through together in five years
the immortal words
the embarrassing prose
the mornings and nights
battling hangovers and the shits
the depression and anxieties
the rejections and small success
the heartache, the failures,
and the joy

i looked at that machine
and i welled up
while the tech printed up my receipt
and handed it over to me to sign
he looked at me like a might be a little bit mad
but i didn’t care.
i handed him his pen back
and grabbed my machine off the bin
as if it were a best friend that i was saving
no, my child
no, my lover

and when i finally
got outside
i held it up
all gray and black plastic
with usb ports and plugs
along its metal back
and i held that machine up to the sun
staring at it for a moment
before planting a big kiss
on its side
and then moving on down the street
past people who kept looking at me
who wouldn’t know
what that kind of love meant
even if i spent all day
explaining it to them.