Boring Sorrow

By WIFE X

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Do you ever have a day
when nothing feels good? 
You amble around in dirty PJs,
take bites of foods 
from your crisper, your cabinet.
Everything is mealy. 
For months, you’ve played Solitaire 
in bed each night, buying into 
that wretched myth 
you could ever “win.”
The man who told you he wanted you 
back, then two days later announced 
he’d slept with another, loved her, 
preferred her, said, “Now, listen” 
(as if he was some authority 
in honesty and truth). “I know you 
are still in love with me,” 
and damned
if that fucking man wasn’t true.
Like a goddamn carnival game, 
he aimed that sharp dart and got you, didn’t he?
Other things not exceptional: paying taxes, 
the exorbitant price of eggs, the terrifying
news headlines, the joint pain in your 
almost-fifty-year-old fingers and ankles. 
You’re a thin muslin bag. 
Even your anger isn’t exceptional anymore—
isn’t that the saddest thing? Ahh, the rage of youth!
Without the sharp blade of love 
to machete through the crap of the world, 
you’re a bit lost, aren’t you? 
It was nice for a time to feel infused 
with a lover’s adoration. Like lidocaine, 
a sedative forest. Now you eat oatmeal 
for breakfast and sometimes for lunch, 
cold and unsweetened, straight out 
of the leftovers container in the fridge 
with your fingers.
You do Kegels every few weeks 
when you lay on the electrolysis table, 
and the old lady zaps the hairs
relentlessly sprouting on your upper lip. 
For the past year, you tried to practice gratitude.
But some days the dump truck 
of self-pity is just too strong.
If this was a snowstorm, a white-out blur,
you’d know what to do. Put on your flashers,
squint your eyes, blast some punk or something 
with a beat, and you’d ride it out, wouldn’t you? 
Even when nothing can be made out, 
when you can barely see an inch past your nose,  
you’d drive right through.

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"All is fair in love and war," the saying goes. WIFE X disagrees. Pat Benatar sang, "Love is a battlefield." And with the statistics about intimate partner violence, household labor, and more—WIFE X agrees with Benatar, which is why she is using this nom de guerre as she writes from her home somewhere on the East Coast.

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