1. First Edition
I used to live with this woman who always told me
my problem was that my soul was too young.
That was why, she perpetually explained,
that was why I always acted so old
and read old books
and didn’t have tattoos
and didn’t spike my hair
and color it purple. You just need to
let go she would preach… let go
of all that shit you think you know. She also
pronounced me mopey
and dopey and moody
and she said I wasn’t any fun when I drank;
though mostly I drank
to put up with her inane ramblings about
the great goddess and her heaping big vagina
and how the problem with the world
was men. Well, I would say, what about
Lysastrata? And she
would roll her eyes
and shake her head
and tell me
that only a dull old man (of 25)
would refer to a dead Greek play. Then,
to better illustrate her point,
she would get dressed up, go out
and fuck all my friends…
only to inform me later
that was what it meant to be free.
2. Revised Edition
So I’m the bastard
because I don’t know how
to react to small town Lolitas
and the scripted hedonism
of homogenized bohemians.
I never got the correlation, anyway,
between nudity and freedom
and I don’t really see
how it’s liberation
when a woman strips down in the woods
for an audience
and how it’s exploitation
when there’s a cover charge
and a two drink minimum.
