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i am glowering at some clothed chick’s
skin-tight pant
because it is there
and because i am a man,
conceiving a conversation in my head
about Kubrick & cannabis and sex positions
that the two of us will never have.
my father was right:
i’m just like my mother –
a broken fucking record;
still choking up at the sight
of metronomic hips in dark blue jeans
when they pass;


long hair tightly pulled in a farm girl’s braid
with a ribbon
for a rubber keeping it all together,

but it’s habit.
leftovers.
i’m more attracted now than i ever have been
to my own thoughts
and dreams
it seems
and by and large
the thrill is gone
because i know now that nothing.
any time you want to talk to me
it’s always under the guise of you wanting something
other than me,
so if you’re going to say anything at all,
just say no and
please leave me alone
because you shouldn’t start what you can’t stop.

she’s clearly a ten-out-of-ten –
or at least an eight-point-five –
on Warren’s Ultimate Richter Scale of
Attractiveness to Men,
fucking pig –
the sort of bad behavior projected onto others
helping the world’s babes develop
early defense mechanisms.
she keeps glancing over and seeing me looking
but i can’t seem to maintain my gaze long enough
the way the TicTok womanizers teach to engage:
i have to force myself from turning away
red-faced in haste,
fifteen again and in love with a Chilean –
the kind of fire behind auburn eyes
to remind the smitten,
the chronically lonely,
the poetically boring they’re still alive.
doesn’t stop me still
from falling,
always eventually,
back to the present of another modern male’s
sad, myopic history
of failing at manifesting his own way.


she’s only really doing it cause of all that excess energy.
looking back at me, i mean.
the smoke is still billowing after eight hours of work
and only a litre of cheap coffee:
like a mustard gas cloud kicked up in a tornado
and not because i’m a pretty orange kitty
cause i’m not,
and have been told as much –
hairy and smelly,
hemp-scented in sweaty all-day undies
because it’s not like back in the day
with daily bathes
in the second-floor jacuzzi of a dual-income home.
and how the once mighty fall.

or because i’m six-feet-seven-inches tall
with a killer bod
like i’m contractually-obligated to be the next Avenger
with no apple box to stand on,
keeping my diet regular,
with one of those v-dips the young virgin chicks
with no experience think is like, super-hot;
statuesque;
cause it’s not.
i mean this bod:
i’m still sporting the post-op chonk
from my transplant surgery twenty-years gone
and i can’t picture a twenty-something blonde running her tongue
around the rolls of my chubb,
let alone that overload of touch
and me me me,
phew…

me me me me me
me me.
maybe it’s because of my exuberant personality.
“funny guy!” funny!

but i know that horse-shit fakery

and i know when i feel like being happy go-lucky,
which is not now
and certainly not usually:
i’m quiet; morose –
i seethe as i lumber like a teenaged ghost
with unapproachable worry lines that curve vertically down my temple
that make guessing my age a post-forty affair.
i don’t like meeting eyes:
it’s habit;
luke-warm leftovers from my masculine defense –
because that kind of contact
means i have to say hi
and i just don’t feel anymore like that kind of guy.


she’ll never walk over here

probably to tell me
i’m a son of a bitch
with mosaic warts all over my face that won’t go away,
no matter how i pick and scratch.
can’t stay sober long enough
to know if those feels would feel enough.
i don’t believe she would do her hair,
dress up,
make up her face that way
for me:
no one has ever done that for me –
all those things i did for my exes to make them feel special
because getting them into bed was the true nature of my mettle.
it was habit,
even when it never worked
and now all i’m left with is wasted potential


so by and large
the thrill is gone
because i know now that nothing

so if you need help reaching,
scratching,
reminding yourself that you are a lady,
know then that i know i am a man.
just look away.
just say no.
leave me alone
and please don’t play these games with me.

//wd 4.25.2024

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