impoetry | Rome, For Lovers

She hit me so hard I’m the atheist on the phone God, crying over my belief in the obviously untrue.

“Well, faith is a complicated subject,” They responded.

The “Just-Another-Girl" that blew in on the summer wind ended up being the one I had to give my everything to believe I was worth anything.

You don’t realize you’ve been robbed until you turn around and realize there’s no heart left in your dreams, work, or future.

“I swear this is where I left it, behind these heavily armed walls to guard it,” I said.

“You left the eastern defenses vulnerable to her phalanx,” God chimed in.

“I don’t really know if you’re any help right now, God.”

“Oh, and the aqueduct wasn’t even being watched.”

“Where would I be without you?”

“Likely surrendering your heart to any harlequin novel with a half-torn cover, by the looks of it.”

Sometimes looking for the simple answer to complicated quandaries leads to insults of biblical proportions.

With your heart absent you begin to look for the rest of your belongings, things touched by love’s recklessness. You had no idea just how deep her infection had grown until you notice her calling card draped across many, if not all of your favorite things.

“Backstreets is my favorite song of all time. I’ve never ever allowed anyone to be associated with it before,” I said.

“Kind of fitting actually, if you examine the lyrics,” God said.

“.....,” I glared, with the side eye of the devil”

“Like Springsteen wrote it for your relationship.”

This girl was so intertwined with my entire being that the mere words, “the jury’s out” is somehow now in a file in my mind’s hard drive labeled, “Your Bitch Ass Got Caught, Brian”. Comedians from Eddie Izzard and Tim Minchin to films like Fantastic Mr. Fox and THE GRINCH of all things, all now neatly covered in a miasmic ooze of her treachery.
And it hurts. Obviously. But what really stings, what really turns the knot of barbed wire and rose thorns in the hole where my heart used to be is that she didn’t return the favor. A year and a half in and she never sat me down to watch her favorite films. Ones that I already knew I loved on my own. Absolute freebies, an easy congress of heartfelt art.

“That’s pretty ruff, but I think the dog thing is likely worse,” God punned.

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?” I asked

“Not at all. I didn’t invent humor. That was an evolution of irony. Like the platypus.”

She trained me to be a father to her dog, a situation that that arrived with chariots bearing only red flags.

“Going back to the Roman theme?” God asked.

“MANIFESTE!”

“Oh, how sad that she didn’t leave on your birthday, mid-March.”

“Hey God, I thought roasting was the other guy’s job.”

**both look directly into camera

I knew better. It sounded sweet, and perfect, but absolutely like the most dangerous thing I could have done, save for providing the DNA for an actual child, something my lovelorn heart now kinda sort of wishes I’d done?!?

“Jesus”

“I know,” I said.

She broke down my walls. I didn’t need to be a dog’s daddy, but I cherished it more than the breath required to whimper about how much I miss her. I wasn’t ready for anything real and here I am, almost two months from oblivion, mathematically calculating every possible error in my love’s work. The journey I’ve taken walking away from our ashes has led me to everything she ever wanted, and things I had no idea I needed, adding insult to the irony.

“Like the platypus,” God said.

“ET TU GOD???”