Not a lot of changes but some adjustments here and there, and I doubt
the lady would remember this even if I used her name. Another country,
etc., etc.
ken
HUNGER'S NEED AND THEATER OF CRUELTY
(February 1968, for Maddie Kasner)
I'd been warned and warned again:
"Don't shit where you eat"--
in this context known as
Do Not Date Women At Work
for it can only end badly--
and yet Madeleine, friend of a friend, the
would-be angel of the Child Welfare Department,
was half a set-up of two lonely people,
delicate but not quite cute, 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 panic-attack jeremiad,
but he also sang a love song called "Elizabeth"
that I remember to this day
because it hurt to hear
and I'd recently broken up with someone
I thought was Special,
and like any good professional victime,
I was ripe for more hurt, unready
to receive whatever offering might come,
primed unawares to give what I'd lately received,
and it all coalesced soon enough
for the second date was behind closed doors,
where she lived, and it was mostly me working
to get her clothes off, to rest--truly rest, perchance to dream--
with her breast in my mouth
almost too tired at that moment to think
of going any further:
a transsexual Dido of Purcell and Tate,
"On thy bosom let me rest,"
and so I stopped, a risible failure
in the age of Love The One You're With
because I knew somehow that Love really is not Free:
it is a grace, a rarity, and it will cost you bigtime,
and I didn't love Madeleine
she was nice and all but who cared really,
it was far 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 could almost bring myself
to enter Madeleine that
I really didn't want to be with anyone
that everything about it felt all wrong
I wanted only to be left the fuck alone
with my terpin hydrate, marijuana,
and my kitten
just to get away from myself
so I stood at the door and said
"Don't expect anything from me, don't look for me,
I am not right for us"
(strum "It ain't me babe, no no no")
and turned and left to leave her
standing aghast and I am sure hating me
for at least an hour thereafter.
No, longer. She left the job shortly thereafter
and did not speak to me again, ever, while she was there.
What power had I, to break a heart
as mine had been broken.
It took me years for my conscience
to catch up from my 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 even if the cruelty
was a bit much to handle.
I guess that defines Shit Happens
even if we could not.
KTW/5-02-07
--
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Ken Wolman rainermaria.typepad.com
"It takes a big man to cry. It takes a really big man to
laugh at that man."
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