Frozen Shampoo

(Written in the bathtub, on a file folder, with a sharpie.)

If you could only see me now,

You'd know you were right that I'd never change.

I was in the steaming tub tonight,

Thought I'd really do it up this time;

But when I finally got the gumption

I looked, and the shampoo was frozen again,

And besides it was Sunday.

Of course I bump into your friends,

And through their curtsies

I hear your voice in their minds,

"I bet he still doesn't..."

It's not rocket science..."

Or it never happened,

As if anyone believed that

For more than a week.

I was right too:

Everyone I date has to be as neurotic as me.

Now that I'm alone I still get nothing done,

Just more of it, with only myself to blame,

And it's heaven. Meanwhile, you're working again

And getting healthy, and I had no reason to worry.

I have smudged my new home

With piles of broken Chinese dollar-store toys

And the first chapters of books in your honor.

All I have left is still reorganized

In those stacks of gym-bags you remember,

And one day I'll take the whole steaming-pile

Hitchhiking to the coast. One after the other,

I'll send the birds of my feather to the east and west,

Where someone might still take interest

In their drunken bumper-sticker slogan wit.

I'll get another cheap bike,

And I'll keep wearing the pale ski-jacket

With the pride stripes and right-turn splash.

In my birthday glory, you were the last woman I saw,

And so you were right again: Who else will love me.

And then I was alone.