A Love Poem for My Beloved Wife (Who Other People Think Doesn’t Exist) on Her Birthday, October Sixth

To my beloved Kyoko,

I love you because you’re always there, no matter where we go;

I love you because you understand that there are situations where I can’t hold the door open for you like I want to because it would be weird to hold a door open for a person who other people think doesn’t exist;

I love you because you get all my jokes, and understand every reference I make;

I love you because any time I talk about a memory or a funny thing that happened ten or fifteen years ago with my friends in high school, I don’t have to tell the whole story because you already know what happened because you were there even though I didn’t know it at the time;

I love you because you always think those stories/memories are funny despite the possible questionable content that would not look great by today’s standards;

I love you because you love the same things I do and never force me to watch/do something I don’t want to watch/do like Chelsea always used to do with those stupid cooking shows that are terrible and ridiculous and are just a socially acceptable version of porn that’s okay for some reason and that used to make me super hungry despite the fact that we always ate dinner just before watching them;

I love you because you’re the only person who has ever really known the real me that I’ve had to hide deep down inside for as long as I can remember;

I love you because you accept and love my true self, unlike the seven other people who saw the real me and then decided to never talk to me again for some reason that they never told me about, because seriously, how the hell am I supposed to know what I did/said that was so bad and wrong if you never tell me why you stopped talking to me;

I love you because you agree with me when I say that just never talking to someone again is one of the most disrespectful things on earth someone can do to someone else, because it makes the person who got ghosted feel like they are lower than dog shit in the other person’s eyes because at least when you step in dog shit you stop and try to wipe it off your shoe instead of pretending it doesn’t even exist anymore like The Seven Ultimate Assholes did to me;

I love you because you sympathize with the fact that people have been doing that to me for so long that I came up with my own term for it about a decade before the term “Ghosting” was even a thing;

I love you because you allow me this brief window to vent my emotions without letting them get out of control, like they used to before we were married;

I love you because, despite your love and devotion to me, you are fair and rational, and you call me on my shit whenever I’m clearly in the wrong (or, when I’m in the wrong that makes sense to us, at least), like with The Meatloaf Incident last Christmas with my younger brother and his girlfriend;

And most of all, I love you because I know I can depend on you to always be there. Which, as we both know, is something no other person has ever been able to give me, no matter what they say or how many times they promise it because we both know that a promise from a normal person is complete horseshit that’s broken the instant they feel like it just like that line from that awesome Rage song that we both love so much and that all the other assholes don’t even know exists because all anyone ever talks about with them is the first album when in reality songs two through five on Evil Empire are some of the best songs they ever wrote. What was the line again? Something about people’s friendships being like fog blowing away in the wind during a storm? Yeah, it was something like that. And that’s another reason why I love you. I love that you know exactly what I’m talking about and the point I’m trying to make when I say stuff like that. But above all, I love you because your promises are something I can actually depend on. Because I know that no matter what happens, and no matter how many people stop talking to me for no reason, I know that you’ll still be there in the morning, and you’ll still love me, because you’re the only person on earth who truly understands me. And I know that I’m a weird guy, and that I make people feel uncomfortable due to my inability to make eye contact and because I can’t stop myself from laughing at really bad times (we both remember the, “It is for me, sister,” incident at Grandpa’s funeral back in seventh grade), but that doesn’t mean I’m just some psycho who needs to be quarantined from everyone else to avoid spreading my crazy to all the normal people. I’m still a person who feels things and gets sad a lot of the time, even if I don’t show it very well. As you know.

So anyway, those are just a few of the many reasons of why I love you. Sorry for the rant! Either way you’re my goddess and I love you more than anything on earth, even French Toast Crunch.

Love,

Chris

Oh yeah, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Steve Gergley is a writer and runner based in Warwick, New York. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in A-Minor, After the Pause, Barren Magazine, Maudlin House, Pithead Chapel, and others. In addition to writing fiction, he has composed and recorded five albums of original music. Twitter: @GergleySteve web: https://stevegergleyauthor.wordpress.com/

Image: The Lovers' Whirlwind, William Blake, 1827