I guess your mom forgot tell you,
in accordance with your lunchbox and
bus tickets to south side minneapolis
(home from school, where they taught you
that if you work hard you don't have time
to get a decent tan), on your way out
the door to imposing yourself on society:
the world is full of boys like you.

Special only to the streets of suburbia, but
not to me. You're like your favorite store: selling
the same polo or fishnet shirt, the same cologne, for the past
five years. The same pseudo-hardcore stylings,
and I shock you too much for a CCC-raised child.

The girl with harlequin eyes, twisted glossy
mouth and hol[e]y hiphuggers, shredded
knees (all that time praying to Pagan gods)
is not innocent. She's not even good, just
well-dressed and expensive. You can call yourself
the devil, but you've only studied Martin Luther.
Yin is where she comes from, and if you
could only see the way she feels inside, you'd
remember something that you never knew,
that is ingrained in us at birth: everything has
a womb, even deities. And that is inherently female.
And that is why Mary is necessary, and subject
to your fascination and your revulsion.

You don't know what is to be lonely, 'cause
somehow you don't know that kind of emotion.
When you speak it's a caricature, an imitation.
The whole time, sparkly denim strung from thigh to
thigh (legs open, to keep you looking at me), I have
to wonder: is this all it is? This is supposed to be
the stuff of plays, of Shakespare, of every goddamn
novel written by something female, awash in soupy
longings? I don't even have high standards. Erica
Jong was on to something after all, young as her
heroine seemed to me (at fifteen and hyper-cynical).
Let me get this straight: you're supposed to be a catch?
Because you think you're sensitive and, oh
"not like the other guys" I've had before?

(By the way: yes, you are.)

A TV can elicit more from me. Come to think of it, you're
reminiscent of that Sex and the City rerun:
Faking It, Season Two.

Just in case you don't get it:
playboy, I think I'm faking you.