I Have A Headache.No, I Have Two Headaches. Poem by Doug Lane

I want to explain to you
why I didn't sleep with you
after taking you to Yamashiro's
that night
25 years ago,
which is funny,
I know,
because you were sleeping with so many men,
or at least boys,
back then
that you don't even remember me
much less remember
I didn't sleep with you.

I really did want to sleep with you
when I first hugged you
in your black cat suit
in Union Station
weeks before.

You were beautiful
and tall and slim
and bright.But the more
you talked, the more you
turned me off
with your endless stories
of doing coke
with dipshits
and then
doing them
and them
doing you.

And my screenwriter friend
told me about that time
you blew
the CAA agent.
That was another turn-off,
though I realize
blowing a CAA agent
is sort of a rite of passage
for ambitious clueless girls
when they first hit this town
and maybe later,
as well.

So by the time
we got back
to your crib
after Yamashiro's
and you kindly invited me in,
I really did have a headache,
an ache in the head
and the other kind of headache
as well,
the kind
all your stories
of self-proclaimed
promiscuity
gave me.

The message was,
whatever we did,
it would mean nothing to you
and should mean
nothing to me.
I had already had
enough
meaninglessness in my life
and didn't need more,
even it was meaningless sex
with a lovely, bright,
deeply wounded,
young woman.

I know you're a respectable
Orange County matron
and successful screenwriter
now, and I'm proud of you
for writing such a happy third act
to what was
a harrowing
first act.
"Who is he, "
you're wondering,
"to be proud of me?
I can't for the life of
me
remember
who the hell
he is or was."