HOW I REALLY FELT

A poem.

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I didn’t like your girlfriend
from the moment I met her.
She was too concerned with
her appearance. (And not just her looks.)
She got offended by the
comedy show we went to.
You and I were laughing while
she compiled a list of complaints for
the car.

I wore a formal face
and got through the few
days we spent together.

I noticed her snobbish wine
books sprawled about, 
I mentioned my lifelong work in bars, 
how I had studied wine for years,
how it was a huge part of my job,
to which she said: nothing.

I noticed her oversized Dahmer
glasses, her soft, weak
complexion, fueled by fatal food fads,
her entitled stare, 
her quiet disapproval.

I wrote a fluffy, fraudulent collection of poems
referencing how the sun
broke through the windows of
your apartment, old friends
reconnecting, 
“The years meant nothing.”

The years stole my youth, my sense of
calm and happiness, erased my
family and every person I called a
friend, took my mind and gifted it
to the wind, ripped my heart out and
rolled it in razor blades and
watched it bleed.

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