(poem)

When did Gretchen last touch me?
In the truck?
The day I cashed that check
from the house she never wanted
and didn't pay for
our last husband/wife moment

Bad marriage is like tinnitus;
a constant ringing in the ear.
Always there.
Always uncomfortable.

And I realize I'm doing what I want her to do.
Paralized, not moving, pining away.
Writing songs about how I fucked it all up
and walking in the rain.

I see her in all my favorite songs
where I'm the subject of every drunken lout
without the grace of being drunk.

I make those times out to be worse than they were
all the more for the fact that I never loved her.

d. mcmanus
v.2
8 Dec 2008