The Main Event

I was thinking about Facebook Events, events in general really, and considered the excuses we give for not attending, the excuses we make for saying we’ll go and then not showing up. So I tried to write a funny response/disclaimer to the actual definition of “attending” (with, of course, the mention of poetry to keep the monthly theme alive):

I saw your request a few days ago, the one for your poetry reading, and was so glad to find that you would be reading your poetry on a Saturday night, at a cafe maybe 40 minutes away by train. Oh yes, I would love to come this Saturday, instead of lounging on my bed, up to my neck in potato chips and blankets, dozing off between commercials. Buy your cah here, at our family-owned business. I watch a small child say something witty about the low, low prices, then wink awkwardly, raise his hand and point: At [last name] & [last name] Auto, we ah driving those prices down, for you. The kid is wearing a suit, and maybe sunglasses. Oh yes, sunglasses. A miniature FBI agent, selling cars. Anyway, I could be dozing off during these commercials, or maybe out dancing. I do that, you know. I dance. And Saturday, I’d much rather watch you read your poetry than dance. Some Saturday nights I have extremely important community service events. Charity dinners, balls. A late-night race for MS. I mean, I won’t be attending these things. Your poetry, too hard to pass up.

I will be selecting the I’m attending option, so please, at your poetry reading, expect me there. Because I plan, oh I do plan, to be there in spirit. My spirit, all yours. I just wanted to let you know, in case you didn’t happen to see me in the crowd. In fact, I’m looking forward to it.

Like.

An on-the-spot poem about leaving parties early:

I left early,
not because I do not like you,
but because I do not like myself
when I am with you,
among beer and bang her,
plastic cups,
B-cups,
skinny pants danceless,
only shaking heads this way
and that,
glasses without prescription,
at the edge of their noses,
so close to bloody
from the sniffing
and sniffling,
teary-eyed from
the smoke-filled room.

Can I get a hit?
A witness?
The language, all party.
The language, all foreign.

NOTE: If you haven’t read it yet, my piece, Kern, Baby, Kern was published on Inspired Mag on Thursday!

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