Tonight's Poet Corner: Happy Anniversary, John

Happy Anniversary, John
by Belinda Roddie

I try not to resort to cussing
to serve as my main form of
percussion, but in certain instances,
my sailor's brain will not be tamed,
and the salt spills from my lips
along with hot sea foam, 'cause my dude,
I am frothing at the mouth when
it comes to remembering an anniversary
about you. Five years since I cut you off.

Five years since I decided I had had enough.
Five years since I knew I was in trouble,
but since my conscience was seeing
double, I couldn't put my finger on it.
But now I can comfortably say what
I've wanted to tell you since I separated
myself from the miniaturized Hell
you built for me: Fuck off, John.

Yeah. You heard me. Fuck off, John.
Holy shit, that feels so good to say.
And it took me forever to let those words
spring from my coiled tongue. I had
to roll them like marbles, treat
them like glass. Delicately, delicately,
so as not to break a soul. I know you couldn't
always control your demons, but my God,
did you ignore all the times they let go
of the reins and let you steer. I know

mental illness is no joke, even though people like
to use it as a punchline. I understand that; I'm living
through it. So why did you put your trauma
on a pedestal after you mixed dried dog shit
left on the dirty ground with mine? Bitch,
I don't get to have my neuroses mocked
while yours are glorified! I know you had

the shitty family life, the job and college
and relationship strife, and the fact that,
poor thing, I was too far away and too gay
and too disinterested to be your wife. You
obsessed over K-Pop and didn't care about
my evening, acting like I killed your cat
when I typed, "I've got work - I'm leaving."

And the moments I tried to help you,
your temper flared up like emergency brakes,
and it took all my strength not to rear end you
because you were already ready to burn me
at the stake. Do the words, in exact order,

"You dyke cunt," ring a bell to you? Is that
why you then guilted and told me you beat
your own face up black and blue after you
called me a "dyke cunt?" How creative. If you
were really sorry, then why did you have to
stick me in a padded room, serving me
your fits like rotted meat and curdkes cheese
and name calling like a replay review?

Is it bad that after a while, hearing your
litany of woes, that once the tears cleared
and the mental bruises faded from my skin
and bones, I realized that I was having a really,
really hard time believing you? You stamped

the word HATE on my forehead even though
I bent over backwards to say hello on
the worst days. I drew out my boundaries
in crayon, only to have you attempt to melt
the waxen lines. You threw the book at me, only
when I opened it, the pages were all scribbles:
I couldn't bear to read another goddamn diatribe.

So please excuse me that I "blew it" by not
chatting during my bookstore shift. And "my bad"
for calling you abusive even when I was done with all
your abusive shit. I refuse to play the game
when it's been weighted against me to lose from
the beginning. I'm not interested in the Pyrrhic
victories you always seem to be winning. Because

you lost a buddy, lost a confidant, lost a person
who was willing to deal with the ghosts who'd
haunt your bedroom every night. You sic'd the
ghouls on me, then claimed I started the fight.
I don't know if you're dead or alive, not since
you texted me trying to "fix it," but I'm done with
your projections, lies, and needle-pointed conflicts.

So fuck off, John. Fuck off with your toxic
waste you called a friendship. Fuck off with
your angry messages from over twenty five
hundred miles like an angry eclipse. Fuck off,
John. And I'll say it with two middle fingers
raised high in the air, like flagpoles, singing
my simple anthem - fuck off, John. I worried about you
day and night, but you taught me what it meant
not to care, for the first time in my life. You

taught me how it felt not to care, because why care
about the man who scratched out new scars
to accompany your old ones? I read the same
headline over and over again: "Florida Man makes
California boi cry nightly." There's no way I can
possibly end this poem politely. Sure, normally,

this would be the part where I'm supposed to say
how much I miss you. But just because I think about
you from time to time doesn't mean I'm about to
waste rhymes on fake sentimentality. I'll kiss
the heads of those who are depressed, give space
to the bipolar and BPD folks in duress, put
my own stress levels to the test, but John,
with all due respect, you can go sit
on a moody ants' nest. Get. Fucked.