It’s like playing ping pong
but there’s a tack in the ball
and someone stole all your paddles – 

​

Teri is screaming this to you,
and you want to leave this crowded corner,
but you can’t find a way out of the bar
so you say what? and hope she hears you
but she keeps talking anyways –

​

So you’re just swatting at it with your hands, right –
everyone cheers as you keep winning,
but you know how much winning
is going to cost you later.

​

You tell her it’s time to leave, and she walks with you
but she keeps talking
like someone else is there with you.

​

When they cheer,
you feel the trickle of red gold
and try to quicken your pace
to keep from remembering you’re playing the game.
Maybe you think its mutualism,
but really, it’s parasitism and you’ve been played – 

​

She stops here to add – 

​

Or something like that, I don’t know stuff like that.

​

She won’t stop and you think maybe this’ll be a laugh tomorrow,
so you keep listening,
waiting for the crowd to let you through
hoping there’s freedom from this conversation outside

​

Now you’re forced into bluffing
in a no-win game of Texas Hold ‘Em
where they want you to think everything is ok.
But then you finally lose
and losing is a relief;
everything has some resting place right
and so the lights at this dingy hotel room your at
finally shuts up and you can breathe
because you’ve been saving that breath,
waiting for clean air. 

​

We’ve made it through the crowds,
into the parking lot,
Finding our place back in the normalcy
of a rental car in rural Montana,
And she stammers on – 

​

Losing is harsh gunshots bouncing off your spine. 

​

You throw back shots together
when you wander back into the hotel room,
all while thinking she should have been the poet
after the last three and a half hours,
And she finally looks at you and says 

​

It’s ok to mourn yourself
when everyone around you is glad that you’re back

​

and we both cry in the hotel room that night,
but we never bring it up again.