My Love Life

My Love Life

I frequent this diner

down the street from my apartment.

I don't know what keeps me coming.

The service is haphazard at best,

and the pies are hit and miss.

I ask for the special. A pathetic pudding pie

is indifferently presented before me.

With a dull thud the dirty pond sags.

I splash into the pool of muddy tears and am left

alone and unsatisfied in this sticky polyester booth,

my appetite wanting more, than a glorified cow pie.

I try again.

Same waitress (she never looks at me directly)

slaps down a lemon meringue.

A spoonful is

deceptively sweet, finish it off, and you get

a sour mouth

like waking up first thing to a cold porcelain bowl

when the froth rises up from the acrid yellow bowels below,

what lingers from a night, dressed up in shiny possibilities

is plunged down the drain.

The waitress returns, clearly not entertained

but she says

the cook has something for me.

The ramekin she carries is out of place,

With a delicate tap, I crack the surface and submerge

into its creamy depths, like exploring

under white fluffy covers when the sun ignites the blinds

and I nestle down

into a place I long to stay forever.

Dishes clang in the back

and I wake

with the fading feeling of a dream where I was in love,

and my sink was full of dirty dishes.

xo,

LA