Doxymoron

Shit that I was, I read his love poem to my girlfriends. His suffering filled an entire sheet of lined note paper that he’d ripped from a three-ringed binder. Except for the odd school-neutered valentine, no one had ever written me anything romantic, and really, unless you counted that time in grade four when I made Jim Moran cry, I’d never been considered a dangerous female, worthy of 26 lines of angsty heartbreak. So I thought the work rewarmed and performative and treated it accordingly. In the fullness of time, I learned that he became a writer. A poet, even.

Inspired by Letters from my Mom’s Boyfriends. Image from Pinterest, with additions.