LIBIDO DOMANANDI

I came back
from Toronto
insane.
And angry.
And hurt
badly.
I also came back
broke. But being broke
was a constant affliction;
this was new.
It was the end
of a year,
almost to the day,
of being on a roller-coaster
with a mad woman:
sit closer,
move over;
fuck me,
fuck yerself;
I love you,
I'd rather not.
She was a bi-polar
bombardier constantly
switching allegiances;
and I was a quadriplegic puppet
trying to jump borders.

I'd made two terrible mistakes:
thinking that my world
of language could actually create
a human being;
and not believing her
symbols of warning
she so graciously laid out before me.
When a person says,
they don't deserve you,
they probably don't
no matter how crazy
you might be.

I spent my days
and my nights
when not working
searching
for whores
of any and every offering;
from any hand
with a pulse.
I was willing to spend
rent money
to have someone
move in
to the space
she vacated.
I wanted to be touched
by a hand, any hand,
of a female sort.
I sent letter
after letter,
email after email,
using words to seduce
them
and myself,
away from the misery
I felt.
I tried to trick myself:
any man, I said,
could get laid in a whorehouse
with a thousand dollars,
but to get laid without any money
is really saying something.
It was canned bullshit,
but it was my own.

And I wanted a cheap whore:
her ass as big as the Montana sky,
her legs wobbly
on heels
a mile high,
her perfume drugstore bought,
strong and acrid,
her make-up thick
and caked;
I would want her to lie
about my prowess
and her enjoyment;
and I would want her
never to come back
for the earring
she forgets to take
that sits
on my dresser.

Six days
of fishing
I caught something
French. Tonight
at eight. I will not bathe
or try too hard. But that
was probably a lie. I am
what I am. No different
than you
whether you want to believe that,
or not.


Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014