affecta

Eating with someone for the first time is always dreadful.
I take small bites.
I dab at my mouth as if I am in a french restaurant.
I do not order pie, or rather I
just order the pie.
I save my habit of ordering dessert at the same time as my meal
for later dates when he's already fucked me,
after I've seen his family and determined that he
as an individual is more fucked up than I.

That's the rule, you know.
Dating up, trading up.
Fucking those higher on the crazy scale.

Some of them are writers and musicians, as you'd imagine.
The truly crazy are the ex-writers, the ex-artists.
The sellouts.
These corporate boys are in a whole different league from me.
I am a reminder of what they have wanted their whole lives (minus the paycheck).
Crying jags and hysterical jealousy all hidden in a pretty little package
exceptional for sex,
suitable for companionship,
just dreamy enough to complicate their personal lives with mine.
On the T, they can think of the songs
they would have written,
the stories they would have typed.

At work they toil for big industry.
They keep a schedule that earns them vacations,
accounts, and
pensions.

At dinner this evening, I belt my trench and huddle in its warmth.
I order Duck L'orange and pastry
and smile at the young waiter whose band I've seen around town.