'old girlfriends' etc - Ken,
you face up to and render strongly for me the hard bad stuff, which my own
'old girlfriend' writing never does.
With this one's story, I expected a return to the workplace mentioned in
line 4.
best from Max
on 30/4/07 12:04 PM, Kenneth Wolman at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> Real quick not a lot of thought needs work.
>
> kw
>
> HUNGER'S NEED AND THEATER OF CRUELTY
> (February 1968)
>
> I'd been warned and warned twice
> "Don't shit where you eat"
> in this context known as
> Do Not Date Women At Work
> because it can only end badly
> and yet Madeleine, friend of a friend,
> a set-up for two lonely people,
> was sweet and cute, just substantial enough,
> and I told myself I wanted her
> as much as I really wanted her
> so I asked her out and she
> said yes
> so we were together twice
> the first time at a club in the Village
> where the guy who wrote
> "Eve of Destruction" sang much better
> than that shitty song
> and he also sang a love song called "Elizabeth"
> that I remember to this day
> because it hurt to hear
>
> for I'd just broken up with someone special
> and I was ripe for more hurt
> unready to receive what might be offered
> unprepared unknowingly primed to give what I'd received,
> but it all coalesced soon enough
>
> and the second date was where she lived,
> Maddie's grandparents' aparment
> (of course it didn't occur to me to ask why)
> and it was mostly me working to get her clothing off
> to rest--really rest--with her breast in my mouth
> almost too tired at that moment to think
> of going any further
> a transsexual Dido from Purcell
> "Oh thy bosom let me rest,"
> and so I stopped, me a failure
> in the age of Love The One You're With
> because love really is not free,
> it is a grace and rarity that will cost you
> big
> and I didn't love Madeleine
> she was nice and all but who cared really
> it was all too involving because she
> did not make it a challenge
> and because I was still getting over
> that girl I thought I loved who'd hurt me as I hurt her,
> miserably, for months before it ended,
> and I realized as I was almost able to enter Madeleine
> that I really didn't want to be with anyone
>
> I wanted only to be left the fuck alone
> with my terpin hydrate, marijuana,
> and my kitten
> just to get away from myself
>
> and I stood at the door and said
> "Don't count on me, go on with this,
> I am no good for you"
> some shitty Mac Davis song,
> and turned and left to leave her
> standing aghast and I am sure
> hating me for at least an hour thereafter.
>
> It took me years for my conscience
> to catch up dismissive awfulness.
> Oh well. Too late to fix it but not
> too late to repine over what can't be fixed:
> the definition of jerking off.
>
> To this day, Maddie, I am truly sorry. I feel
> the same now as then: it was hopeless hope
> and I was at least lucky to see it if the cruelty
> was a bit much to handle.
> I guess that defines Shit Happens
> even if you're not.
>
> KTW/4-29-07
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