Struggling

I haven’t had time to stand and fart recently,
and you’re wanting me to work on a relationship?

That silence gathering in the front room
like a crowd waiting for a drunk to fall,

it’s something to do with you, isn’t it?
Some kind of comment, some kind of rebuke?

Poverty appears like steam, after growing
invisibly, takes its shapes when it meets the cold.

I’ve been spinning on the spot like a mad dog
trying to make two short ends meet, and I don’t

need advice on how to feel happier
on less, thank you very much. Passing

on the street, no-one would know, except
that I am hurrying, from one tired place

to another, wearing out cheap shoes faster
than the rest of town. I’m struggling.

 

Mark Robinson

But even in the most constrained and challenging times, I could never be the cheap or calculating cunt you are, and that counts for something in my dilapidated universe. To think of the time and effort I put into our friendship despite knowing how lazy, entitled, disrespectful, cowardly you can be, believing I w/could be the exception to the rule, despite knowing the way you desecrate your partner and his family and your closest friends behind their backs…it was hope that led my dumbass to overlook what was obvious about you. I wanted to believe the best in you and you let me know I was expendable to you like all the previous users in my life have done…take everything you can and wring me dry and discard me when there’s nothing left to take…it’s like a script at this point with you people. thankfully, this will be the last time I let that happen to me. I loved you and had hoped you would stop compromising your way to the contrived control you’ve been cultivating for decades for a chance to live up to your potential but you don’t wanna put in the work to be your best self. You talk a good game but you're not willing to risk the possibility of being alone for any length of time. You’re a master manipulator and you will fuck with that poor man’s head just enough to punish him and keep him in line, but he’s not as weak as he pretends he is, and he was spot on about…but he’s a settler like you are and maybe that’s a perfect fit. I think he could do a lot better than you but I guess we’ll never know, will we? god forbid anything come your way that will challenge your comfort and imagined control of your kingdom. Eliminating me was efficient for your purposes. You’re not a dummy after all. You’re just a disrespectful and cowardly cunt and you probably always will be, and that’s ok by me bc I don’t have to deal with your insanity anymore. To think I was foolish enough to believe we would be forever friends, but of course I did. I’m an idealistic romantic who will always hope for the best for you bc that’s who I am. I may be struggling, but I will never be the kind of asshole who bails on my friends during difficult times bc it’s the easier thing to do. And I like that about myself.