The Story of Us by P.A.Levy

I’m the kind of person who would have gone to a public
witch burning to find out what kind of kindling was hip,
you would have gone to public hangings to see if the guilty
jerk and spasm, piss themselves; puddle or spray?

Yes, it’s true, I would superglue a pound coin
to the pavement and find enjoyment watching a chancer
casually try to pick it up, but you would drop
a fifty ton weight. The coin was bait.
You watched far too many cartoons
when you should have been studying for your GCSEs.

I might go to the scene of a car crash only to collect
the shattered pieces of red and amber glass
for my mosaic. You would want copies of police
photographs, hunt for blood stains
and gather up bits of limbs.

When we played cut and paste in the library
I thought it a laugh
to slash out the odd paragraph, or write coded messages
on page one hundred and sixty three. Never content,
you spliced pages from hardcore porno into large
print editions of romantic fiction. You even assassinated
the final pages from the who-done-its.
Snip. Snip.

I hate you.

I hate you because you told that priest he smelt
like a peadophile and we spent all those years
in purgatory. And because you stood up in school assembly
and blurted out that the headmaster wears frilly lingerie,
swore blind you had seen him in the gym mistress’s PE kit,
we got two months detention; thanks for that.

I hate you for telling every foreman on every job
to get stuffed and then for looking befuddled
as to why we always get the sack, that you always pick
arguments with biggest blokes in pubs, and because you tell
every woman that we meet they look like tarts.
Then have the nerve to ask how much a blow job costs.

On a radio phone-in you told
the nation I’m a habitual masturbator,
knicker sniffer, pussycat fiddler,
you just had to give out my real name
and where I live.
It seems this compulsion to humiliate
is all the motivation you really need.

I hate that you are there for the thick
but never the thin.
That I can’t get the better of you,
I can never win.
Charged with insincerity
and feigning compunction
without due care and attention
I stand accused
whilst you sit back and grin.