Retired Poem

Here's another poem I can't put anywhere else but this blog. And it's a middle child, of sorts.

Two friends of mine were married last year. Earlier, they had invited me and my girlfriend to dinner to ask me if I could write and recite a poem for the occasion (not realizing that they were asking both me and my girlfriend, who helped as an editor).

This resulted in a poem called "Fanning Fiction," which I plan to send to a print journal soon, so I won't post it here. But not only was that poem hard one to edit and finish alone, it was far from the first attempt.

I knew the bride the longest, from our undergrad years, which were spent with individuals who were eager, desperate even, to keep the high school hierarchy thing going on campus. Kind of funny, given that these people were almost definitely never "up there" in their own high school pyramids; but they sensed that they could try and create some kind of system where they could be small scale--and ultimately pathetic--top dogs.

Out of everyone around me, the bride was closest to this group, so of course she suffered the most. She was eventually exiled from the group, which was the best thing that could have happened to her. I've been cheering her on ever since then and am glad that she seems to be better off than any of the old Borg-like group who deemed her unworthy.

Images of the Borg and the bride were going through my head as I planned the poem. This caused problems. First, she was only one half of the equation, and I didn't want to shortchange the groom. Two, I didn't want to shortchange the importance of their day by bringing up the high school baby shit of the past.

Still, I suppose I had to get some of that out of my system before I could get to the important stuff (maybe I had more resentments than the bride). This venting process came in the form of two poems that predated "Fanning Fiction." The first was "Alumni," which you can see on Concelebratory Shoehorn Review's March issue. The second one? Well, that's below. I've omitted the name of the bride in the "for" section; but if she reads this, she will know, and she will figure out who the "she" is supposed to be. However, if she feels it could be multiple choice or multiple personalities rolled into one, who am I to argue?


Slash Fiction
for ____


She still writes stories
like the ones they printed
in the college literary rag,
the characters’ names
so similar to her classmates’.

They were barely stand-ins
receiving her dose of
the meaty prose found
in girls’ room stalls
and yearbook captions.

All for whoever was picked
for the role of villain,
which, following the breaking
of school time bonds, rotated
faster than the hero
in a Jim Croce song.

Today, she has serious blocks.
She doesn’t know your new friends,
can’t fathom the people
who saved you post-banishment.

All this and a husband now?
Even when she found out
his name, she couldn’t find
a worthy substitute moniker.
One time, she tried to write
herself in, but it’s hard
to be God and a plot avatar.

Rather than finish anything,
she strips take out chicken
ordered on Fridays and pretends
it’s your flesh she strips
and your bones she buries,
in a grave she kicks up
with the toe of her shoe
in random spots out in her yard.