i overheard someone call you the marlboro man while
walking down the street and i don’t think it’s right. like,
correct, because several versions of the marlboro man didn’t
have a mustache. several versions of him did, but several versions
of him didn’t. i want you to be smart about this. think hard. i looked
him up on google several times. say that again, ten times fast, because
i know you can. the real-life guy who became known as the marlboro
man died a nonsmoker at age 90. friends, richmonds, countrymen, lend
me your feet with which to kick tough ground.
i think what i love about you so much is you don’t mind losing. they say
opposites attract; i find something so crushing about that. i can’t lose gallantly,
with pride. i hear you singing “only the good die young” in my ear, see
you stroking my post-coital hair. you might as well be the one. and i want you
to live, witchita boy, i want you to live so fucking hard. you get me a late
check out with your cold feet, the kindest thing you could do. later, i watch you
annihilate at darts from the back of the pub and in the one where you panic,
having done things to another woman that you’ve never done to your wife, i realize,
quite simply, that
i always fall for the ones like me, who, in some magical moment, are underestimated.
misunderstood, i want you to hold me                              by the tip of your midwestern-ass tongue.