Funny

Funny
I recently looked you up on
Facebook
(Morbid curiosity?)
Looking for any new insights
Into your soul
That I might be able to
Garner from
Sifting through the debris of
Your wall postings and
Any other clues
That you may have
Allowed past the check points of
Your inner censor
(You pretend to be all revealing
Yet I know from experience
Just how guarded your many
Secrets are)

Apart from the usual and
More or less expected ravages of time
I must say
You look remarkably the same
(Hair dyed jet black
(Of course-
(No grey roots showing for you!)
 A few pounds heavier perhaps
(But then again
Who am I to talk?)
All in all
As I said
Very little about you appears
To have changed

You post your most recent
Attempts at creating works of art
(I call them glorified finger paintings)
You list your most
Recent achievements and awards
(Congrats but does anyone really care?)

And of course
There is no mention of us!
No hint of the us
That used to be!

And then a familiar feeling hits me
As if I need to suddenly gasp for breath
That old familiar feeling
That would suddenly sneak up on me
Whenever I had to spend
More than five minutes
In your exalted presence
The feeling that all the air
In the room had suddenly been
Sucked out of the window

You always did consume
All of the available air
Leaving none for anyone else
Everything had to be about you!
As if the entire universe
Revolved around you and
Your inflated opinion of yourself
You always had to be
The center of attention
The brightest star in the
Firmament of your own creation!

I understand it better now
Why our relationship foundered
And why it took me
All these years
 To finally figure it out!

You think that you are
The second coming of
Lucille Ball!
The zany TV show red head of
I Love Lucy fame!

Like you
Lucy also thought
That the whole world
Revolved around her!

And me?
I was supposed to be your
Desi Arnaz!
The foolish foil for any
Bizarre scheme or idea
That might enter your head

Well
You sure ain’t no Lucille Ball and
I sure ain’t no Desi Arnaz!

Considering all of the
Collateral damage
That we caused
I think that both of us
May have a lot of
‘splain’ in’ to do!

jhmarkowitz
Philadelphia, Pa. 2012