Thankyouverymuch Poem by Rev. Dr. A. Jacob Hassler

this is not a poem, this is a thank you note

frankly, i don’t have fun anymore.
the marrow has been sucked from all my bones.
i consider it a good day if i can go to bed
without crying myself to sleep.

those stories you heard about me were all
the result of liquor-fueled post-adolescent rebellion.
i was the crazy drunk guy i had always wanted to
hang out with in high school, but i never knew his name.

all those crazy stunts you witnessed a year ago
were the final bleats of a bugler’s bugle,
who desperately felt there was a new war within him,
on a battlefield grown over with weeds and abandoned.

the posthole piercings in my body have scarred over.
the makeup has been washed off of my face
the nail polish has flaked from beneath my cuticles
the clang and crash of drum machines barely ring in my ears.

as we sat chatting that night in the flashing nightclub with the
patrons spinning around us, i put away every smiling word you
said in a safe place to cherish later. and, as i listened carefully,
i swore i heard that bugler’s defiant bugle calling me to arms.