those Playboys

you slightly invited me
into your life
and I came busting in
like a firefighter,
with a miner’s headlamp on
to shine all over you and
in the process accidentally
expose your dark, dark
underbelly. I caught you
sitting in the basement with
your black self-pity and
your piles of paper dollies
that you pretend
you’re in love with,
you shrank away and hissed
melodramatically through your fingers
like a lizard man
or the Chupacabra,
but this is actually
an episode of Hoarders
and I’m trying to
stage an intervention here.
and just like any
intervention, the subject
fights it tooth and nail
until one wonders, “Really, why
bother? this right here
is someone who
doesn’t want to be saved.
let him wallow in his own filth
amidst those Playboy magazines
from 1998 – why should I care?”

you seemed like
the kind of broken
that made me want
more than anything
to try to fix you.

but since it turns out
you’re über-happy
in your misery,
I’ll back out,
close the door quietly,
and leave you be.

don’t say
I didn’t try.
don’t say
I didn’t care.
it’s not my fault you’ve
been living in the dark
for so long, you’ve forgotten
what sunlight
even looks like.