Heartbreak

I don’t have any new
insights
on heartbreak.
Most of what I know
everyone else knows,
but it’s good to review.

It’s familiar,
like the homeless man
you seem to run into
every time you leave your house.
The one you know
better than you’d like.

It teaches us the lessons
we never wanted to learn,
moving arduously through the text book.

Heartbreak is an asshole professor
testing first week minutia
on the final.
Every quiz and test is
cumulative.
I hope this is the final.

A forgone conclusion.

a crack in the sidewalk
walking the dog
a yoyo trick that’s getting old

The empty feeling after a kick to the junk, a studio apartment,
bad song lyrics, the fourth plate at a Chinese buffet,
a dog with cancer, a diamond ring, your first mustache.

It is not a
broken record,
it is a
broken stereo.

A rock stuck in your shoes
cavities with no dental insurance
ketchup stain on prom tuxedo.

Her voice
knocking the wind out of you.

Almost, near miss, better luck next time, plenty of fish in the sea
over and over and over and over again and again and again.

Heart break is a railroad tunnel
painted on the side of a cliff.

A pen out of ink
and a journal full
of crush-drunk gibberish and
sad analogies.

A porcupine fetus
we give birth to
every time they
brush up next to us or
laugh at our jokes.

Profanity
oozing out
from chest cavities
in sighs,
mumbles and
slow sips of thick beer.

Your stomach getting all lobsided
after she says
“you’re such a funny guy”
emphasizing such
like a twist of a knife.

The callous built up like a wall around us
with holes the size of quirky smiles and
casual conversation.

Seeing prophecy fulfilled, the land laid to waste,
and your heart on the long march to Babylon.

A mosquito bite.

It comes when hyperbole
becomes morphine
and all you can hope is that
this is
at last
the final.

I’m not saying anything new.
This is just review.
This will be on the test.