In Conversation: You Don't Mean Nothin' At All To Me, Over Here, In My Place Poem by Dennis Ryan

early Wednesday morning, April 10, 2024 at 12: 20 a.m.

—This poem is for Maneli Nemati, who deserves this and more. She is a dissident Tabari woman living in Nazarandan Province in the north of Iran on the Caspian Sea who cares only about herself.

"It's gonna take a lotta love to change the way things are …
You know I need relating not solitude."
—Nicolette Larson, "Lotta Love", You Tube Music Video

I wasn't born yesterday—I don't mean nothin' to you,
and I kinda realized it from the start; but just didn't want

to believe it, the ways you acted, turned silent on me
when I asked questions, would turn yourself around right

in front of me like I wasn't there; then finally mocked me.
Yeah, you were somethin' to be proud of in your own mind.

But you really are nothin' yourself, a hollow shell—at least
you are to me, and that's all that counts here; in my place.

You see, I met with somebody fine earlier today, a woman
of substance who values me (unlike you) , does a lotta things

for me the right way, smiles in just the right way, says things right alright, so you can go to hell, smolder there, and never

come back over here. You're not welcome here anymore;
careful now—read my mind. You got no other choice anymore.