(Originally published in Water
Soup Press)
Poet Man likes to write
about taking random women home from the bar on a Wednesday night. Not women
like you, though. Capital-w Women, the willowy kind who don’t talk. The whole
world is full of talking and Poet Man wants someone to listen to him and touch
him and not need anything at all. He does them on the frameless mattress in the
corner of his rented room and talks death at them in the few minutes between
cumming and falling asleep. The Women leave the next morning, and in his poems
Poet Man wonders why the world is so impersonal. All of these people talking
but none of them hearing each other. People never listen to each other these
days, says Poet Man. You agree for a second but Poet Man has already begun
masturbating to the emptiness he feels when caressing random bodies. Or
something. Poet Man smokes a cigarette. Poet Man drinks a whiskey. Poet Man
falls asleep with his dick in his hand.
You catch Poet Man after the
reading and you tell Poet Man you thought his work was brilliant. You say it
illustrates perfectly the struggles of mental illness and isolation. Poet Man
smiles like you would at a baby in the grocery store before informing you
mental disorders are a myth and that the poem was really getting at the
universal hopelessness of the contemporary American male, a sure-fire way, he
says, to shake up the poetry world. You nod uneasily and Poet Man takes your
hand without asking. He tells you you’re actually very smart and invites you
for drinks that very minute. It’s only 4 o’clock, you say. Time is a construct,
says Poet Man.
He insists on the most
expensive bar in the neighborhood and doesn’t offer to pay because Poet Man
thinks gender roles are archaic and identity politics are holding us back. You
nod quietly for the rest of the night and as you’re signing off on the bill for
your $15 order of two beers Poet Man thanks you. You ask Poet Man what for and
Poet Man says for not being cruel because most women are so cruel, so
heartless. They only lead to pain. It’s so tragic, he says, to want to touch a
woman. So tragic, so tragic, so tragic. When you get to his place he repeats
the phrase over and over again from on top of you while you wonder why there
wasn’t any soap in his bathroom. Poet Man smokes a cigarette.
You pull your clothes back
on and Poet Man asks you if you’ve ever thought of killing yourself and you
tell him the story of when you were a freshman in college and learned about
depression and got on medication and Poet Man says he doesn’t believe in
depression. Because how can you live in a world like this and not want so badly
to die? Because intelligence, says Poet Man, is a burden. You tell Poet Man you
don’t feel burdened anymore since getting on the meds and Poet Man says,
exactly and depending on all of these chemicals is killing you. Then, Poet Man
smokes another cigarette.
You get up to leave and when
you offer to give him your number he shakes his head sagely and says he doesn’t
believe in second encounters because after all what are we but hopeless specs
in a lonely universe destined to be alone so why bother? so you leave.
A few months later, you’re
reading from your chapbook and spot Poet Man in the audience. You two share a
grin so you catch up after it’s over. I see you cut your hair short, says Poet
Man. You nod; what is it with you and the nodding? I prefer long haired women
myself, says Poet Man. You tell Poet Man you were getting sick of styling your
long hair in the morning and Poet Man warns you not to care so much about how
you look. It’s shallow, he says, so shallow and tragic and anyway what have you
been up to? You shrug and say you just moved in with your new girlfriend who
you met at a protest. Good, says Poet Man. I always thought you would be better
with a woman. Someone like you would be too cruel to a man. You tell Poet Man
you’re actually bisexual and Poet Man says Oh, again with the identity politics
anyway those poems were actually great. Actually? you ask and Poet Man smiles
to himself and explains it just wasn’t what he’d expected and he liked the one
about the Poet Man. It’s so universal, he says, taking a long draw of his
cigarette.
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- Kat Giordano
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