tell me how not to love him and I’ll do it.
it’s a mistake to reread the messages
but it’s too late now.
you don’t even know what I’m talking about.
you have the wrong idea.

my mother and the other woman.
an unlikely truce, like sisters, like enemies.
there is art and there is truth
and what I’m doing isn’t art anymore.
I’m not even lying, I’m not even exaggerating,
I’m just spitting up all the
filth that’s been trapped in my lungs.

I know too much,
I hold it all like a child holds
a bag of marbles.
I can’t imagine the boulders
my mother drags around.
I can’t imagine what I don’t know.
and now it hurts too bad
to force myself to speculate.
“the other woman” is funny
because there wasn’t just one.
because at some point
everyone is the other women.
even me, the daughter grows up
and stops being your best boy
or close enough
and becomes just another woman.

there is art and there is trash
and you know which one this is.
I’m not even trying to polish this shit,
I’m regurgitating what I’ve been fed.
that’s all, that’s all.

we can get deeper in if you want.
we can talk about the money
or about things even worse than that.
we don’t talk about anything.
most of the time, I try not to even think.
you could be a different man
if I really believed, but I don’t.
I see you now. I...