Poetry Doesn’t Have To Be Sad

When I was in community college I wrote a poem about what it would be like to have sex with a cheeseburger.

Everyone loved it; after all, we live in America.

A gentleman in my class said my writing reminded him of Charles Bukowski’s; a lofty compliment.

I don’t remember the grade I got, but I remember the cheeseburger had lettuce, tomato, and a pickle on it.

I didn’t eat meat back then.

I got a ride to school with a veteran who smoked marijuana to stay alive.

I had quit using drugs, but he needed something to ease the pain and calm his nerves.

I stored all my writing, hundreds of poems, essays, short stories, on a flash drive in case anything happened to my computer.

A guy I dated broke my laptop in half.

I didn’t need it anymore by that time because I had stopped going to school.

I ended up going out with another man(boy), he reminded me a lot of my dad.

When we started dating, he didn’t have a job and he had just gotten released from prison.

He was living with his mother.

At least I had my own apartment.

My mom made a habit of finding men to take care of her and pay her way through life; I went the other route and took in strays.

I wonder if our pain was the same.

After about six months of dating, I was pregnant, we agreed that I would not work and stay at home to take care of our son.

One night I found a folded blue wax paper bag next to the cat’s food dish; and I was thoroughly upset that the cat might have sniffed heroin.

I ended up moving out of that apartment for fear of not being able to “do it by myself”.

His drug addiction surpassed his desire to be a father.

I blame him for breaking my son’s heart and not knowing our daughter, and for misplacing that flash drive that had been sitting in the bookcase that was built into the wall.

By Melissa Lemay

From: United States

Website: https://melissalemay.wordpress.com