It's Better than Being Alone

Maybe she's in Tijuana,

shit-faced in a bar,

forgetting she is the bartender 

in a bar with dirt floors 

and no bin for tampons in the men's bathroom,

not at all ambiguous of gender. 

Disappointed when the door births 

yet another cocksure tourist 

or local who is disappointed it isn't a strip club.

Or maybe she is doing tattoos in Belfast 

and isn't any damn good at it,

except for when people ask for Chinese letters because you can't really fuck up Chinese letters —

except when they're Chinese. 

And each time the bell rings on the shop door,

in her head she says the quote from 

"It's a Wonderful Life" —

"Teacher says, 'every time a bell rings, 

an angel gets his wings.'"

I say the same thing. 

Rather, the little Zuzu Bailey in my head does.

Or maybe she is waiting tables 

in a tin-roof diner in Kansas 

on some dusty interstate that is desperate for a tornado.

And she spits on the hamburgers of every trucker and traveler who is rude to her,

but doesn't charge for drinks for those who are nice. 

And every time she comes to a table 

she sighs a dejected sigh no one seems to notice

because it is just another asshole

and our meeting is, again, postponed. 

Or maybe she is in Nigeria

going to cosmetology school 

looking out her window at the stars 

wondering how the fuck she is going to ever do bikini waxes and toenails for a living, 

wondering if I am out there looking at the same stars,

or if a lion has eaten me,

or an elephant has trampled me —

not knowing that I am simply bored without her somewhere in a place she's never heard of in America. 

Or maybe she is in New Mexico 

sitting in a lawn chair in the desert wearing a tin-foil hat,

waiting for a UFO, 

writing stories on a blog about weird alien shit 

and wondering if anyone else thinks like her or does the same thing, 

or if I ever read her blog —

or if she has inadvertently read mine without knowing it. 

 

Or maybe she works in a McDonald's drive-thru in Logan 

and looks every white car over carefully 

because the palm reader told her 

the love of her life drives a white car 

and will be coming to her place of work.

But unfortunately for us, I don't like white cars 

and I don't ever go to Logan, or McDonald's, 

so it is a continual letdown for us both.

  

Or maybe she is at a Charlie Chaplin Festival in Hamburg,

dressed up as Charlie Chaplin, 

careful not to fuck up the costume and look like Hitler, instead.

And she tells everyone her favorite Chaplin film is definitely "Gold Rush," 

or maybe "The Great Dictator," 

though it is "The Kid," because "The Kid" is his most famous film 

and that would be trite of a true fan —

just as I do, only in English, without subtitles, 

and she doesn't see me because 

I don't have a passport and I've never been to Germany, except in a dream as a Jew. 

Or maybe she is in Japan 

on a fishing boat with her aging father 

who is too old to cast the net 

but who tells her that finding true love 

is like fishing for one fish in the Sea of Japan.

And she sits down to contemplate the enormity of his wise words as he fishes in silence and

as the boat croaks and rocks gently in its place above a million fucking fish, she broods, 

suddenly, and wearily, overwhelmed. 

Or maybe she is in a library in rural Vermont 

looking over the Kurt Vonnegut section, 

wondering if anyone out there 

engages in the practice of Boka-maru, Bokononist or otherwise, 

where they lie on their backs and touch the soles of their feet together 

so their souls can mingle rather than making ordinary love 

as they do in "Cat's Cradle" in Chapter 72.

Or maybe she is in Las Vegas 

watching Cirque De Soleil's "Love" by herself 

because she was tired of waiting for the right person to see it with —

just as I have thought to do.

Knowing all the words to every song. 

Or maybe she is in Tahiti 

where the Caribbean sea is blue 

just like in that song by Reckless Eric without knowing that song by Reckless Eric at all, 

let down everytime some perverted Norwegian tourist offers to rub lotion on her back "for you,"

they say in molested English 

as she looks around the beach of disappointing faces just as I look around a crowded grocery store of equally disappointing faces. 

Or maybe she is in a bar in suburban New Jersey,

drinking with friends, and playing that song on the jukebox app on her phone 

ahead of shitty nonsensical mumble rap and corny country pop 

because it is her favorite song, too. 

Singing every word as I am singing every word of it 

simultaneously somewhere in Ohio,

both of us dreadfully off key but in tune. 

Or maybe she is right under my nose

and God is cringing because of all the signs he has given us both that we do not heed. 

Maybe she is too lethargic or afraid to make the effort 

because of someone who wasn't me 

who ruined her impetuous nature

and idealism and has her quoting Marilyn Monroe 

and thinking that maybe she's a lesbian 

or that she belongs on a commune somewhere in Wyoming, 

or in a convent in France. 

Or maybe she was born a hundred years ago 

and was at the park feeding ducks 

as I am at the park feeding ducks, 

only a century apart,

similarly disappointed by people and world events 

to the point that ducks are about all that make sense. 

And she sees couples as I see couples, 

much the same, 

but in different clothes with different manners, 

alone yet together in our discontented loneliness and hapless time dysfunction.

Or maybe it was only seventy years ago 

and she was ice skating on the pond when it froze over and there was someone else there to catch her when she accidentally fell, rather than me.

Some asshole. 

Or there was no one to catch her but the ice 

and it all suddenly felt despairingly empty to her 

as it feels despairingly empty to me. 

Fuck, she says, as I say fuck in a hollow sort of exasperation that echoes somewhere within, 

very loudly, for the soul is a cave. 

"Where are you?" 

they ask without saying anything at all.

In elongated sighs and exhalations.

In stares and long exhausted blinks,

in a moment of disappointment that you get used to with each and every asshole you meet. 

And each asshole you're expected to settle with because their good-looking enough 

and they like some of the things you like 

and it's better economically and for your taxes, 

and because your family approves,

and better for your mental health, they say,

and because it's better than being alone. 

But every "it's better than being alone" they meet inevitably disappoints,

as they have all disappointed me. 

They flirt with her sister or stop saying I love you,

or stop writing love notes, or holding doors, 

or doing that thing with their tongue, 

or making dinner, 

or getting up when she comes into the room. 

No more flowers, or small gifts, or kind words. 

And passion — that they would plead is impossible to sustain (just ask anyone) —

is traded for a terrible TV show.

A football game is more important than a walk or an impromptu lunch date.

And the tooth fairy comes more often than she does.

It is all to be expected because it is not better than being alone. That is a lie. 

It never has been. 

I am alone in this hammock that is a cocoon

while they ask, where are you, as I ask, where are you,

without saying the words at all —

until now.

I ask very loudly and clearly in a lawn chair in a moon-drenched cornfield, 

waiting to be abducted because maybe she's an alien. 

Have you considered that? 

Maybe 2,000 miles away might actually be 2,000 light-years away.

Maybe a white car might be a white spaceship. 

"Where are you?!" 

Could I conjure you with a Ouija Board and enough candles? 

Will you come if I leave the oracle on the board overnight

and a path of rose petals to my bed?

Are you in prison somewhere and unable to reply? 

I'm available by letter, love. 

Happy to correspond for 10 to 15, 

or whatever you got.

Ink makes for great foreplay

in voluptuous cursive. 

Or maybe she is eating dinner at this very table 

where I am writing and drinking red wine —

a hundred years from now.

She bought it at the antique store 

that is yet to be. 

Yet to be filled with things that have just been made. 

Or maybe this will be her house, 

as it is now my house. 

Or it is her house, as it was my house.

She is divorced, as I was divorced. 

Maybe she is having dinner here 

and I am but a lucky ghost across from her, 

finally finding her,

death not parting us, rather, joining us for maybe 

Death is a romantic.  

Maybe when the candle flickers a certain way

and the wind blows through the sheers,

and she loses the burden of reason,

she knows I am here. 

And she holds her wine glass up to me, 

as I hold my glass up to her,

our teeth, lips stained red.  

"What are the odds that I would find you?" she says with a wry smile, 

content in her gray hair and beautiful wrinkles.  

She waited all her life as I had waited all my life a century before 

after the realization that settling is no longer a viable option. 

That terrible people are meant for someone else. 

Not for us. 

"At last, I can honestly say," she toasts, "it is better than being alone." 

Must we wait til then, love? 

Find me and declare it, I pray. 

The only thing I've ever prayed for myself is you. 

Not for health, wealth or any sort of favor. You. 

Or is the universe in conspiracy against us?

Is God not listening?

How can so many unworthy people casually have you,

whilst I do not. 

This is an appeal to Heaven —

not a pious metaphor. 

Yours.