The Little Known Plague of Male Poets

M+X=Y

If you don’t know the value of M X you can’t solve for Y.

He doesn’t know his worth. I do.

The combined value is so monumental there is no word in the English language for it, except maybe “all”. Everything ever.

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was putting letters in math.

Wait, no.

The greatest trick he ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.

Personal amendment to the second?

Convincing the girl he did indeed exist and then ceasing to do so, making her feel like she didn’t exist either.

For a minute there I lost myself, I lost myself (Karma Police)

Of course I am the girl, I am always the girl.

For a minute there I flattered myself thinking the 12 days he was with me I was perhaps 7 of 9. I now have concrete proof it was more like .007/999.
So be it. His ego is a black hole and needs to suck in all of the light. From everywhere. Ever.

“You were the light and the way, they’ll only read about…” (Tool) he claimed to know Maynard as well. Bragged a lot, this one. He didn’t have to. My mind’s eye saw him poor, poor and perfect. Broke my heart he felt the need to name drop and put price tags on things. As you wish.

In English class we are taught to look for symbolism in writing.
I cannot look anymore, everything speaks to me, it always did, nothing is about me, and it never was.
It’s hollow and void like a collapsing star or a sucking chest wound.

And just like every break up since those high school classes, a song comes along that fits, like the composer wrote the lyrics just for me. Mine is Chvrches Leave a Trace. “You talk far too much. For someone so unkind.”

There is more, there is always more.

I run a literary page, I find these posts by women poets I know and paranoia grips me.
The hurt they convey matches mine so precisely, I think ‘that can only be coming from one place’ HIM.

5 times I have thought this, and 4 times I have been wrong. You see dear reader…

There is a little known plague.

It’s a wandering herd of male poets. Like zombies, but they don’t look like zombies, they are beautiful and alive, they want IN your brain. They need to suck all of the feelings out of you to feed their own feelings. It’s a cyclical conundrum, they feed on your feelings to feed their writing which sucks in more women for them to feed off of the make more feelings/writing to get more women and so it goes.

The hunt the open waters of the internet.

They are an evolved sub-species of fuckboys…they have learned our language, the secret language of the hearts of women, every word is what we want to hear…nay every word is what we have been waiting forever to hear. But like regular fuckboys, they roll in, unannounced, fuck shit up and leave. They just do it with a bigger vocabulary, the damage is exponentially greater in proportion. Like a bomb versus a bullet.

I am going to start a support group/commune/island for the survivors, in underground bunkers. Bring tequila and Kleenex. I’m thinking it will be decidedly Amazonian. Lots of gardening and a center for disease control where we try to solve for Y. Survivors of the beautiful boy zombie apocalypse. Our island is called Sanctuary.

No men allowed, unless they pass a strict quarantine.

“Where do they all go?” my girl asked.
“To the island of misfit toys I suppose” was my answer.

These fuckboypoets that go ‘poof’ in the night.

“You really loved him” she said “I could see it coming off of you.”

“Aye, I did…I do”.

He said “us against the world”. I fell into the abyss. Here there be monsters, all wearing his face.

I have a deep ache in my bones from where he bit the hand that feeds, I know I am still infected. This is for life, I’ll never shake this disease. I will learn to live with it, or die trying.

There are parables that fit.

For him…once upon a time a man walked endlessly on a beach, searching for a mythical pebble. It was said this rock was warm to the touch and granted wishes. Every day he wandered up and down the beach, picking up stones, tossing the cold ones into the ocean. One day, his hand closed around the magic rock, it was warm to the touch, and he felt the power in it. Sadly, his muscle memory was stronger than his grip and he tossed the rock into the ocean like the thousands that came before it. He is still searching. Dummy.

For her…once upon a time a woman was fetching water from a nearby stream. It was winter and cold. She found a snake upon the riverbank, he was dying and told her so. She hesitated, but picked him up and tucked him against her skin. She set about filling her water jugs and heading back to her village. When the snake got warm enough, he bit her breast. She cried “Why would you do such a thing? I gave you warmth and saved your life.”
As she lay dying, he slithered away from her and said “You knew what I was when you picked me up.” Dummy.

The same snake bit me twice, both times I survived. My body is building its own anti-venom. I labeled the vial “truth”.
If I see him, I know I will pick him up and keep him warm until he bites me again. Also truth.

Someone asked me if I brought my ghosts with me to my new house. “I had to” I replied, “They are married to my muses”.
It’s the truth. They fight and fuck all the time, sometimes it’s hard to tell which.
The only time I get scared is when they go quiet, because I cease to exist.