Rom Com Read online

  Puff Puff, Give. Puff Puff, Give

  I

  always

  thought

  Friday

  was

  a

  very

  romantic

  comedy

  about

  Ice

  Cube

  and

  Chris

  Tucker

  trying

  to

  have

  a

  threesome

  with

  a

  joint.

  Acting

  It’s in the shoulders

  and the lips. Anything

  can shrug. Wrists

  roll into suit pockets,

  sly indicators of interest.

  Pupils roll around

  in all directions,

  make everyone dizzy.

  Including yourself.

  Blink to tears. Blink

  them back. And do it again

  with a happy feeling.

  Blink. No, wink. Pretend

  you don’t even

  have eyes. Attempt

  contact. But

  don’t. Look away

  if someone looks at you.

  If you’re alone

  you can sigh. Stumble

  in heels, stumble

  in flats, stumble into arms,

  retract your whole body.

  Clamp down tongue,

  hands, thoughts, nipples,

  anything

  that will give you away

  as someone who really wants.

  The Acting Was Fantastic

  I pretended to like the movie

  so we could make out.

  Forgetting Sarah Marshall

  1

  Did you remember the way love works? I told you once in a small elevator that the world closes in on you in the moments of memory. Sometimes I work on forgetting. I practise it every five minutes. I work through each memory of you, and forget that one, then move onto the next. Sometimes it all comes back, and I work on blacking it out, from the couch, to the bed, to the television, to the chicken sandwich you ate afterwards. Ashes have memories attached too, but you can’t see them. Jumping off a cliff doesn’t make them run away, it only lets it slip back until the memory jumps too, and holds onto you for dear life in the ocean that was never very good at swallowing you up. The ocean runs away from you too.

  2

  Sometimes I think about how thoughts of you stretch my skin. You have a terrible memory so you smile more than I do. I remember, one time in Hawaii, you tightened the blankets around my body so I couldn’t escape, or so that memory couldn’t escape, and you put a bible over my chest. I don’t believe in monsters, so I slipped away in the night.

  3

  You are the devil, I said. Blond hair and blue eyes. I gave you control. I gave up all control. Control is just a construct. I gave up my memories. I figured I could try again, start with new ones, so I handed them to you, but you were never very good at carrying things. I gave my memories names, and put them on your shoulders. I buried a few for later. I put some of them, the ones that sweeten from nostalgia, in Mason jars and leave them in the cupboard, then put a few of them on the counter because they look better for public display.

  4

  You said jump, and I did. The memory holding on for dear life.

  You Fell for the Wrong Girl

  Her face glossy

  easy, breezy, beautiful.

  That face glued on a billboard,

  the best features

  of another woman

  glued to her skin. Eyes

  that pop like Pygmalion’s

  boner for shapely ivory.

  Breasts as lovely and temperate

  as barely legal Scarlett Johansson’s.

  Her nooks are perfume-sample sweet.

  Everything aligned. Legs

  mannequin slick.

  You see the world

  through Kim Cattrall’s

  thigh-gap, reach

  for a sculpted navel.

  Two teens can make a woman

  Kelly Le Brock-bodacious

  out of masturbation

  perspiration, a Barbie doll,

  and weird science.

  Keep adding breasts,

  a second or third vagina.

  She is Her, a voice designed

  to deliver smooth gratification.

  But still, something is off.

  Maybe she’s wrong, because

  she doesn’t push herself

  hard enough to be a real girl.

  Or maybe it’s your fault

  you don’t look like Ryan Gosling.

  But Maybe He Wasn’t Really a Person

  You watch too many romantic comedies so you stayed with the wrong guy

  for the story. For the narrative. He fit the scenario you created,

  and the stories you build wrap a theatre around your heart.

  You couldn’t get out of bed the day he left, put beer in your coffee cup,

  and told everyone you were moving to Bali.

  You watch too many romantic comedies so you stayed with the wrong guy.

  You created a narrative between text messages and between

  things that were unspoken, that maybe were never real,

  and the stories you build wrap a theatre around your heart.

  You moved across the country to live with him

  and when you showed up to his apartment unannounced he said “Oh.”

  You watch too many romantic comedies so you stayed with the wrong guy.

  You flirted with a guy via Twitter who said he was James Franco,

  you sent him your number not realizing it was a robot,

  and the stories you build wrap a theatre around your heart.

  Before you go to bed, you imagine him leaving his wife, maybe at

  a dinner party with all of his famous friends, falling asleep to your own dream.

  You watch too many romantic comedies so you stayed with the wrong guy

  and the stories you build wrap a theatre around your heart.

  On Every Television Channel

  On every television channel

  there’s an opportunity for viewing

  modern takes on Shakespeare, no period

  costumes or iambic pentameter.

  Who needs it when you can have Heath Ledger

  and his greasy 90s curls, put-downs, come-ons,

  crooning. He can’t take his eyes off of you.

  The football field is so American,

  so glowy your head feels like a pompom.

  This is a movie about teens, for you,

  even though it’s not how romance works out.

  Or did you not know that when the time comes

  your only choice will be to wait and wait

  for grand gestures that don’t materialize?

  This Is Considered Adorable

  You lost it all in the recession,

  wrote the sorrow in a diary,

  called a young girl a cunt.

  You fell for the wrong guy.

  She bought you containers for your cereal.

  Lucky Charms choke, said, “There’s someone else”

  in the living room, naked.

  You fell for the wrong girl.

  He broke your car seat, he broke

  your mirror, he broke your bed frame,

  he broke wind, and this was considered adorable.

  You fell for the wrong guy.

  You placed your hope in a song,

  let the world pass you by, paid

  your dues in meatballs.

  You fell for the wrong girl.

  He left you when he was accepted

  into law school, you tried to

  win hearts, trading pink for black.

  You fell for the wrong guy.

  Titanic

  What if Titanic was just a romantic comedy

  starring Leonardo DiCaprio and
the Ocean?

  The Stories You Build

  The stories you build feel

  real. Not just onscreen,

  in you. Stories pile

  in the rational parts of your brain.

  Transformative, life-solving

  love. Eyes stare into eyes

  until misunderstandings break

  your slobbering bodies apart.

  Mistakes atoned for

  in specific gifts, boom boxes

  blaring, iconic buildings

  illuminated, Tic Tacs.

  You want overtures

  that could get someone

  put in jail: an airport-gate crash,

  a jewel theft, some wholesome kidnapping.

  He will come to you

  without asking when

  you need saving, when

  he doesn’t even know where you are.

  Nora Ephron

  She wasn’t your best friend,

  but she could’ve been.

  The advice would have blown down

  your door, rearranged your meagre apartment.

  You would have felt better

  about almost everything,

  though sometimes not the endings

  of stories. Those would leave you confused.

  Like, why doesn’t anyone question

  the love-of-your-life conceit?

  Why can’t a story end

  with solo wine, torn T-shirt, underpants?

  That’s comfort. But so is she.

  Writing desires, making things messy, then tidy.

  She wasn’t your best friend,

  She could’ve been anyone’s.

  She was everyone’s.

  Ever Wondered If You Might Be

  the Best Friend

  of a Romantic Lead?

  (Additionally, you might be quirky.)

  FIND OUT NOW!

  Check all that might apply:

  Zooey Deschanel might wear a kitten / panda / owl cardigan to play you.

  You use words that make your sexually active friends cringe.

  When you take off your pants and your underpants there is a second pair of underpants painted onto your body.

  You tell everyone you are married to one-liners.

  When you cry alone a ukulele soundtrack plays every single time.

  You have never heard a saxophone sound sincerely sexy.

  You shave your legs, but only because you can’t bear the scratchy feeling. It’s just so … adult.

  You’re always available by phone for long discussions of other’s sex problems, heart problems, brain problems.

  Your inner life is unknown to even your Instagram followers.

  No one takes your advice seriously.

  Every encounter is an opportunity for a joke.

  You joke because you’re so used to that role.

  You’re used to it because no one listened when you tried to be serious.

  No one takes your advice seriously.

  You’re not sure if your friends really like you.

  You’re pretty sure you’ll never find love.

  Every time you order a vibrator online you open the box and the contents have turned into sparkly dust.

  Sonnets for Supporting Roles

  Rita, Bridesmaids

  One morning, you took a towel out of your

  son’s drawer and its softness had turned

  to stone. As you tried to press it into the

  washing machine, it cracked in half. The way you

  feel when the night comes and this isn’t

  anything you expected. When she walks

  down the aisle, you think about it all over

  again, what falling in love is like: the warm

  way bodies shake with new desire.

  When she tells you that you are more

  beautiful than Cinderella, you remember

  the way it all began. The way he spent

  his time fighting for your attention, the

  way you let him, the way you gave in.

  Dionne, Clueless

  The way you let him, the way you gave in

  still doesn’t make the neighbourhood

  feel like home. When the picture is taken, you

  are to the far left, or the far right,

  not centre. You didn’t want to be called woman

  knowing what that really means, knowing

  the slang slides down your skin that

  isn’t the colour of hers.

  If you spend your days being a sidekick

  if you help her get her driver’s licence

  if you help her get a boyfriend, if you

  focus on being the other for others

  maybe you will be voted most popular and

  that, maybe, it could happen to you.

  Muriel, It Could Happen to You

  That, maybe, it could happen to you,

  another working-class woman can swoop in

  take your husband who was always

  more infatuated with your womb

  than with your fire. Someone gives

  you a way out, a golden ticket, a hand

  never offered. They see you as “other”

  and that makes them uncomfortable,

  your desire to escape the low income

  that you were forced into. “You so stupid,”

  you cry out, as he slips away, to a world

  where women are as white as the cream

  they serve him with coffee. This world isn’t

  for you, not for you, but for porcelain dolls.

  George, My Best Friend’s Wedding

  For you, not for you, but for porcelain dolls

  walking down the aisle. You are a cellphone

  or an emergency lip gloss. You are the touch-up

  rouge in her purse, you are the gay best friend.

  The one who fusses over her hair, memorizes wardrobe,

  waits in your apartment for whenever she is ready.

  Filing nails, and sitting on your Barcelona chair,

  watching Murder, She Wrote until she calls.

  When she is ready, you snap fingers and make

  jokes with flapping hands, tell her she has it all.

  When she needed you most, you flew down

  to save a dance at the wedding, a wedding you

  could never have, legally, so instead you collapsed

  back into a lipstick and a clasp purse.

  Kit, Pretty Woman

  Back into a lipstick and a clasp purse,

  where you keep your drugs, and your condoms.

  She would sometimes get the higher-

  class gentleman, but you’re not what

  they are looking for, or so you say. You don’t

  get to be Cinder-fucking-rella. Your glass slipper

  has burn-marked edges from the crystal.

  You offer a night to a grandpa and say

  his wife can watch for extra, and it’s laughed

  off, but you need the money, your life

  depends on the kindness of strangers

  or else your moth wings burn in neon red light.

  When you watch her taken away in her carriage

  it all sinks in a bit deeper, breaking the skin.

  Christmas

  for Daniel Zomparelli

  Christmas is supposed to be

  about love, or about the other.

  About the way we’re supposed

  to feel the pull of others to us,

  and I guess us to them. We want

  holiday-movie elation.

  Liam Neeson is a sad miracle. Emma Thompson

  is the part of you it hurts to see. Don’t

  even get me started on Keira Knightley. Some characters

  are always worshipped for no good reason.

  What is the anatomy of a Christmas movie?

  It’s a human shape that wears novelty sweaters

  and drinks eggnog. You drink too much

  and hope t
hat the cute guy notices

  how loud and funny your jokes are,

  even though you’re going to offend

  his best friend in ten minutes

  by being right about how offensive he is.

  Sad faces look at mistletoe

  and, below, incessant kissing;

  slobbering fools, happy couples,

  mismatched lovers. Even

  when you know love

  is really holes in underwear,

  and shared silence. Small efforts

  warm your heart the most,

  death, sickness, forgetting how you used to be

  as a kid on Christmas, a hopeful teen. Somehow

  we all end up like Laura Linney,

  unable to fulfill our own Christmas wish lists.

  What we need to do is gather around a screen

  with full bottles of wine,

  and watch a fuck-load of celebrities

  make merry, break hearts,

  become barometers of holiday cheer.

  Because it’s all about tradition.

  You decorate with a remote control

  and turn on the television.

  Love Actually

  Love, actually

  moves between the spaces of desire and fulfillment, it isn’t

  the spaces of longevity versus

  boredom, between

  sustainability and perpetual validation, in an ever decreasing

  power, love, actually

  cannot represent the general public,