Like It's Funny
Private Jokes That No One Else Gets
Kevin and Darcey had a couple of dates,
Pool table bets, toothy grins, fancy wine,
And a mutual “friend” connecting them—
A married man who never learned to stop chasing.
He works with Kevin,
Knew Darcey back in school,
Tosses compliments like pennies,
Wears his wedding ring like costume jewelry.
Kevin and Darcey stay friends for the commentary,
Private jokes no one else would find funny,
Laughing at a man who cheats
Like it’s charming, harmless, cute.
Darcey loves it—Kevin does too,
Bonding over broken vows,
Like promises are balloons,
Tied loose enough to float away.
But it’s not edgy, it’s not cool,
Not dark humor done right,
Nothing subtle, nothing clever,
Just two people giggling at the wrong time.
Maybe it’s their chemistry,
Maybe it’s in their genes,
But you don’t joke about broken promises,
Unless you’re okay with one someday.
About the Creator
Tina D. Lopez
I have a lot of silly things (some dark things) inside my head, so I write them down. Sometimes they turn into poems.
My book Love Ain’t No Friend of Mine is available on Amazon. https://a.co/d/6JYBmLH
Keep reading
More stories from Tina D. Lopez and writers in Poets and other communities.
December 8, 1980
When I was six or seven, my stepdad came into my life, and I remember thinking he knew everything. He could befriend anybody, anywhere. In grocery stores, he chatted with strangers over cuts of meat; at gas stations, he bonded with people pumping fuel over how the smell of gasoline was disgusting and yet enjoyable. In restaurants, he took an interest in waiters’ lives—like Steve, whose father was dying of cancer. When Steve’s dad died, my new dad attended the funeral.
By Tina D. LopezExclusive • 19 days ago
Foot Bindings
I asked my grandmother how she knew she'd fallen in love. I am not sure I ever did love him, she said. This was before I met my husband. I was naive, a naked spring, a raw nerve of a thing. That cannot ever be me, I knew. Sadness swept in gently like a Moscow thaw. It is no simple thing, looking into a woman's vast soul and seeing its foot bindings. Now, in Italy divorced with my skin singed off, when I say I don't love him mean: I have succeeded at feeling nothing most days and it mostly works. Do you want the comfort of Nothing? Do you want Nothing, too? Be warned: you'll never be free, even when you are nothing. Here is what doesn't work: Accepting the stages of grief. Talking about it. Sitting with the feeling. Missing him—no, the person you were when you believed in death do us part. Writing poetry. That, too. When I say I don't love him I mean: I feel capsized in an endless, starved tide. What sometimes works: selective memory. You must forget ripe tomatoes and his beard and feeling perfectly sheltered in a big blue world. Forget coffee in bed, laughter watching TV, blowing out the candles on the birthday cake and the quiet all-encompassing knowledge that you are chosen. Remember only how love turned to a banal everyday survival act, a trapeze act unsure whether he will catch you, how the warmth stagnated and became sour, remember the foot bindings and remember the resentment boiling in your veins as you stick it out for the kids. Six-hour Netflix binges help, too. A man's fingers tracing your spine. Frozen pizza at 2 a.m. Random trips to the museum just to stand near things that last a while. The realization that crying won’t change anything. Seeing that life is just a dream, and refusing to participate in your own suffering. Bite your fist. Walk on eggshells around joy. When I say I don't love him, I mean he didn’t break my heart, he just stopped touching it and it forgot how to beat right.
By Ella Bogdanovaabout 19 hours ago in Poets
Brainwashing, Soul Food, and Torches of Freedom: Eat More to be More
Eat More Bacon Now Smoke More Cigarettes Now Eat More To be More (“We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.” -Edward Bernays, the Jew who Hitlter tried to hire.. . . )
By SAMURAI SAM AND WILD DRAGONS5 days ago in Poets
The Piggy Project
I’ve had so many names in this life I lose track of which ones were ever really mine and which ones I wore because someone needed me to. Some were handed to me before I had words to refuse them, before I knew what they meant, before I knew I could say no. Most weren’t meant to hurt. That doesn’t mean they didn’t leave marks. Marks that told me who I belong to, who I am by way of who claims me, recognizes me in the good and bad, who walks beside me.
By Fatal Serendipity7 days ago in Confessions
Comments
There are no comments for this story
Be the first to respond and start the conversation.