Jul

16

If They Ask Why I Went Mad

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Perhaps I’m bent
sale bin canned food
a child’s bicycle wheel.
I drive past the house where
I grew up, disgusted with the
new owners’ complete disregard
for my history.
I watch the post-apocalyptic scene of
a double bill homicide and it’s
not even my neighborhood:
I had to drive here.
I Nair my knuckles, worried that my
Mediterranean blood makes me less
desirable to real people.
It’s been 3 hours since I touched a human being.

I get a little irritated with
noisy signs of Spring that might
wake me before I’m ready.
Mother calls weekly from
the coast, worried; I tell her
I’m just really busy.
I obsess about my hands and how
dry they seem to be, despite my
compulsive purchase of every new
lotion, cream, treatment,
spiritual solution promoted by Cher.
I listen to a woman counsel me
on romance. I know she’s a
prostitute; I’ll probably take her
sage offering, but I won’t
drink from the same bottle.
It’s been 3 days since I touched a human being.

Strip malls are being shat out
onto cement islands over what
was primordial soup just last week.
I’ll watch $18 go up in smoke as
a palm reader lights a candle for
my love luck
but I can’t seem to rectify my gas bill.
I worry about my hands, alternately growing
and clipping my nails in an effort to
define my style.
I covet my next door neighbor’s
husband, but I remember that it says
“wife” in the bible, so I’m ok.
I saw him swear and throw a socket wrench
at his truck and it made my panties
a little slick. He can’t see me.
Two drunken women dance and
grope each other in front of the stage
where I’m singing. I’m transfixed.
One of them shows up in the paper
as dead at the hand of Idaho nazis.
It’s been 3 weeks since I touched a human being.

I’m making sense of Pink Floyd lyrics.
A friend preaches about AA, rehab, and frigidity;
I wish I had a cool problem like that.
I stay up ’til all hours, then treat Sominex like
a Flintstones chewable, noting that the skin
on my hands never looked better.
I often wonder about Ouija; throw rune tiles
diligently looking up every meaning,
but toss Catholicism into the
discount mysticism pile.
It’s been 3 months since I touched a human being.

I obsess about my hands; I let them get
paper dry, then clip cuticles, buy
nail polish and $27 in moisturizer.
It’s been 3 years
three months
three weeks
three days
three hours
since I touched a human being.