so…

i visited your house today

your

big and baby blue house today,

(it was an awkward visit, i think, )

met the co-owner

also know as your girlfriend –

a meeting long sought after

by all parties involved

i said

“what if i don’t like her?”

and ellen:

“oh, that won’t even be an issue.”

it was

it is

an “issue”

we met

and we exchanged:

names

handshakes

favorite poets –

mine: charles bukowski

hers: sylvia plath

we met

and we shared:

conversation,

poems, ideas, and

cheddar cheese on gluten-free crakers

(worst things i’ve ever tasted, by the way,

and they were

glazed in something that looked like

plastic or laquer

and tasted as such)

- shared:

(secretly on my end)

our love of you

our love for you

we met

and we observed:

your art

hanging in the dining room-

you never told me that about yourself

that you are an artist,

her poetry book collection

(while putting a book back,

a case of introductory spanish cassettes

fell to the ground-

i blushed)

and you weren’t there

why weren’t you there?

i needed you!

you would have made me

comfortable

you would have bridged the

oh-so-evident and existing

GAP

i feel bad you know,

that i couldn’t like her,

didn’t like her-

as much as i should have

that i had to force myself to try

and i think that maybe i’m jealous

- maybe i’m not

and i think that

it’s because she not like you;

she looks down on me-

i am teenage wasteland

i am the ignorant child

she is the high school teacher-

she must know

the extent of my intelligence

she must know

my banality and ignorance

i hate that.

you told her

i am an erudite

you told her

you were impressed with me

she didn’t feel that way about me

you told me

she is just like me

you told me

that i would love her

i didn’t feel that way about her

the only

connections

we share

are commandeered by her

she is cal hockley

i am jack dawson

she has

you

and more literary experience

i want

you

and more literary experience

she made me second guess myself-

read ‘ballad’ and told me

“it’s good... for teenage poetry;”

she made me second guess myself-

told me you’d said

“you were impressed that a

teenager

could be such an erudite.”

but what is age?

you didn’t care so

why should she?

all that matters to me

is our

stunningly soul-mate connection

still, she is slowly taking away

everything

such as my confidence!

and we are in an 80:20 ratio

but it’s rapidly changing

(getting smaller on my end)

and i’m losing in the mathematical world

(“numbers and i are not the best of friends.”)

but don’t count me out,

i’m trying to make a comeback.