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Rennie Parker

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'My Tabloid Relationship Hell Scenario'

This time it’s divorce among the brittleness and winebars too late
for the powerstruck eighties; this time it’s full-on chick-lit meltdown
from the pages of Heat and Hello. And flying accusations hit their mark,
smack down on the courtroom floor to a hush where a judge
bangs the same old gavel on another failed union of souls.

The kid won’t be happy, but hey, it’s about what the purchaser buys
in this human shop of ghouls. He’s bought her with promises and assets
a few generations of gold – what the public prefers – and there’s you
sobbing on the fire escape on the exit route from your dreams,
you’re the last sorry entrant for Neurotics Anonymous

on twentyfour hour TV. Yes you’ve had cars and the clothes but now
it’s the council skip; and there you are hauling your luggage away
from the brightlights of all sophistication. Next time you paste me
with tales of your vast undoing I’ll know it’s a different level you’ve reached
– the core of your hurt – only that time I won’t be listening you see

because this is how most of us live, the jobs we don’t want, the sales
the bitching, the second hand clothes, the paring for cash when the bills
slide in, and I.... I just don’t care if you’re the Angel of the Lord
sent down to test me I’ll still take my chance on the next devil
it’s better the one I don’t know, in the case of wonderful you.

 

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