How many times how many
ways can I say
I can’t do it
how much more emphatically should I have insisted
and I never meant to hurt you
I really didn’t
but I guess that doesn’t mean I didn’t do it
does it.
I guess then I’m going to
drink until I can’t stand or
at least drink until I
can’t stand it anymore
or more likely both
and then I’ll get there
and then I’ll get there again and
again and again and
I’ll have gotten somewhere and then
I won’t really remember where so
why not do it again maybe
next time I’ll remember where
it was I got to last time or
next time or whenever I guess
when doesn’t matter much I think
I’m gonna go ahead and
have another
drink.
I think I might even write a poem about it.
They kicked in the front
door they broke in the
windows they were waiting
out back they were
waiting out back where
you fled out back and
it wasn’t a pistol in
your hand but they
thought it was they’re just doing
their jobs of course who could
fault them for that and
they got you six
times double aught
buck you didn’t go
quietly turns out your
aunt came down and wasn’t
sure since there wasn’t
much left to go on with
much certainty but a DNA
match off a comb and
they matched it and
she didn’t cry but
she did raise you from four years
old and she
did put a bullet in
her head
it was a sad story
and I can’t tell it worth
a fuck.
The world’s fucked up
never really been up for dispute
but I doubt the world’s got much to do with it
if I’m fucked up
and I’m glad for that
it really is nice not starving
but isn’t it weird the way
easy life can be so goddamned hard
and here I hate my petty problems and I hate my stillborn failures
I hate my weakness and my fear and my anger and my hate
and I really fucking hate these clever little contradictory life paradoxes about
how ease is somehow difficult
I really do
which is a shame because I think I’m pretty good at coming up with them
used to amuse me but anymore they’re mostly
kind of cruel
all cute and succinct
an ego thing, maybe, like some very mild targetless sort of bullying—
I invite you to imagine me
sitting at a desk
in a room
anno domini twenty and eighteen
slamming right the carriage return lever after that line
cold coffee, stale cigarette smoke
smug little self-satisfied smile
being clever
being really clever
I bet you can see it
it’s been an easy image to cultivate, really
I just tell everyone I meet I’m a writer and that’s that
carry around a little notebook, never use it
mispronounce the names of philosophers misquoting books I’ve never read
probably thinks he’s lost, broken, unfit, unique just like everyone else
and no shit he just did it again with the paradoxes
can’t even help himself I bet
only he didn’t come up with that one himself
got it from a movie or a TV show or something
ah plagiarism old friend glad to see you glad to
and but wait was he trying to make some kind of cogent point here?
I’m not sure
but I feel better now
paper’s cheap
and anyway
I wrote this on a screen.
You left no note
but the rope
didn’t know
it was a cry
for help
and it held.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry it was you. I’m sorry it was anyone. If there were something I could have done, I wish I’d have done it. I hope there’s some peace to be found over there. I hope you’ve found it.
I really hope.
Maybe if I were happier
I wouldn’t be such an asshole.
Maybe I’d be happier
if I weren’t such
an asshole.
This will never work
of course
this is true because I already believe
it to be true but even
if I didn’t it
wouldn’t work
because I can’t change
or at least I’ve not yet
been able to change and
I have little
faith that I ever
will
I am not a happy man
I am not good at making other people
happy
how could I?
how could I even know how?
if I am anything it’s
sad
deeply deeply sad
for reasons beyond me
or maybe not, maybe I know why
but if I do
it doesn’t matter anyway so
please
fuck
save me if you can
but I know you can’t
and I’m so sorry.
I’m so sorry.
It doesn’t matter please don’t think it matters it wasn’t it wasn’t you it wasn’t your fault
I am Dustin’s senseless existential rage
directed via typebar hammer blows against
this blank page
for lack of a better target.
It bleeds painlessly in ink
a delusion of something less
impotent.
This works better in its original typewritten form but in any case, here we are.
D. B. DEVILLIERS 