“Let there be light,”
someone once said somewhere,
I think, but
it sure wasn’t here.
Shit is bright in this club.
Flashing. I can see the pores
in all the post-pubescence
that surrounds.

And that’s fine by me.
I want to see what I’m getting into.
In the wake of your perfect storming out
I am looking for the best girl
who will do me wrong.

This has been the quest
every single night
since you been gone
and there have been many wrongs
for this Mister Right Now.
Times have indeed been had.
The girl right after you
was gorgeous and generous
and very creative with her suggestions
but she couldn’t be found
after I lost her number.

The one after that,
the Spanish revolutionary,
the member of the Initiative for the Development of Soria,
could not stop talking about her march of IDES
so I finally told her
we’d meet again at Zuccotti Park.
She probably never went.
Why would she?

Will l do any better tonight?
Perhaps I may find someone
to help me abate the hate.
The first gaggle I approach scowls as one
at my line
“Hope you brought the bread
cuz I’m ready to jam”
It goes nowhere fast.
“What I did was undeserved,”
I apologize,
“because I was earlier over-served. ”

I break from that pack
to find a defenseless solitary doe
who reacts well
when I put her drink
on my tab.
She’s new to town,
pining for a boy at home.
I’m bored of the game
and say something wrong
to quickly move on.

They don’t all succumb to my charms
of course
but it matters little.
Every rejection brings me closer to you
every slight they provide
reminds me
at least for an instant
I can feel something besides self-loathing.

This one.
Her sexy half shirt says
Just Do It
but I implicitly understand how
it does not mean right now
and anyhow I swore
to not blindly follow slogans
on T-shirts months ago
after you.

When I sidle up,
I calculate that I have
well over a decade on her
in addition to an absence of fear.
“We can all agree on one thing,”
I say, “topknots look awful on everyone.
It makes any person look worse
than he otherwise would.
Or she.
Or it.
Definitely it.”

Of course she has her hair in a bun.
I expect her drink or a first
in my eye
but instead get a smile
and then a number
and then some tongue
and a little handwork later in the Ladies’.

The night is bright and full of promise
for those strong and vibrant enough to take it.
The night is dark and full of horrors
for the rest of us.
Happy anniversary to you.