Proof

My name up in lights
And in the Los Angeles Times
Sold out
Standing room only shows
Everyone telling me
I'm on my way
To where
I really don't know

Managing a 23-bed men's
Alcohol and drug recovery house
Where the owner told me
I needed to call the guys on their shit
I didn't smell any shit
So I told him I couldn't do it
And that I was fine if he didn't want me
Working there anymore
But he kept me on
And even tried to entice me away
Asked me to name my price
To not return to school
At the end of the summer

And my boyfriend
Was a musician
With a high libido
Like mine had been
Until it fell off a cliff
Cuddling was fine
For me
But not for him
He always wanted to get it out
And get it on
And get it in
And me not wanting to
Became such a problem for him
That I offered to go to couples counselling
And bought books on gay male intimacy
Which he agreed to read
But then he never did

Why don't you just go to couples counselling yourself
He finally told me
As if our problem
Was my problem
And maybe it was
I certainly couldn't prove it wasn't
But I wasn't about to go to couples counselling
Without him
So we broke up
And then had break-up sex
And then had break-up sex
Again

And then I started back to school
Writing and writing
As if I was a writer
With somewhere I was going
With somewhere I wanted to go
I was going home
And getting on the phone

Calling a gay hook up line
And hooking up
And hooking up
And hooking up
Until I hooked up
With a guy
Who lived a 2-hour drive away
And who didn't have a car
And was full of self-pity
Because he was in the country
Illegally

He had a job
Making dough
At a pizza joint
Under the table
After having graduated
From high school
With straight A's
And his mom was dying
Several inhospitable
Borderlines away

He was giving money to
Immigration lawyers
Who seemed to be
Just stringing him along
And I loaned him money
So he could give them more

And then I tried to break up with him
And he exploded
So I recanted
Only to break up with him again
A year later
For the same reason

Because he was depressed
And just wanted to watch TV
And wanted me to watch with him
So when I drove two hours to get him
I felt like I was in jail
Stuck in Spanish-language
Tele-novella hell

And I wanted to criticize him
Tell him to get off his ass
And live
I'd offered to move back to his country
With him
Life is an adventure
I said
But he'd seen too many of his sisters
Raped in his home country by militia men
I guess
I guess

It made sense
He didn't want to go back to his home country
It made sense
He just wanted to watch TV
But it wasn't very fair of me, I thought
To sit around him
Holding my tongue
Wishing he
Wishing the whole world
Was different
Wishing I could just marry him
And fix everything
The way I thought he might want it
Or at least the way
I thought he might want it better
But I couldn't

Besides, I told myself, maybe this
Is all just a dream
And nothing is
What it may seem
Maybe God or some higher power is in charge
And there's a master plan
I couldn't prove there wasn't
And it was a lot more pleasant
To think that there was
As he left a dozen crying messages a day
And at least as many emails
And now and then he took the bus
Leaving early in the morning
To arrive unannounced
After seven bus transfers
He thought I'd have to talk to him
After he went to all that trouble
And I did
But only while I was
Driving him home
And then the next time
Only while I drove him
To the closest
Bus stop