Thursday, April 7, 2011

7/30: For My Friend

For My Friend, Upon The Occasion Of Her Divorce:

Get
sad.
I mean it. Get as sad as you want.
Cry. Cry curled up in the kitchen floor
surrounded by too many dishes. Cry until
you snot on the floor. Leave the snot there
for days. I mean it. Ignore the dishes,
the bills, the laundry, show up late to work
and forget what clocks are for. When they ask
why you're late, again, just look at them,
like they've spoken a foreign language, like
they have no faces, like you are dying

to kill them yourself, like you don't even know
where you are. And forget how to fall asleep.
Stay up until five a.m. doing nothing at all,
flipping channels on the television and then
on the day you decide to turn it all around
and you do the dishes and you mop the floor
and you start the laundry and head out
to the grocery store to find something
for dinner, forgive yourself completely
for falling apart right there in front
of god and everybody when you see

his favorite cereal. Buy a box just
so you can throw it away. Then don't. Then
buy whiskey, or wine, whatever your poison,
drink too much in the parking lot
of the bar before you go in, and go in
and the first man who buys you a drink,
if you like the look of him, is your man
for the night. Laugh at his jokes.
Dance with him and when you aren't dancing
hold on to his arm. Let him take you home.
Let him remind you that you are,
in fact, beautiful. Fuck that man
for hours and then leave. Leave his bed

in flames, leave his house burning down
around him, take a cab home. Leave
your panties behind in the cab. The cabbie
will never forget you. The man from the bar
will never forget you. The bar will never
forget you. The man you're divorcing
will never forget you and you will never
forget him either and that's okay, because
one day you will realize at the end of the day
that you hadn't thought about him once all day,
not up until the point that just then
you only thought of him to realize you hadn't,
and you'll chuckle to yourself, you'll get

a new tattoo, a haircut, shoes, and you'll miss
those panties you left in the cab, miss
the man from the bar, even miss your ex-
husband but you'll love the woman you've become
since.

2 comments:

southern fried yankee said...

I love and thank you for this, Ginna.

Anonymous said...

I LOVE THIS.