DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE Poem: You Get the Epilogue You Deserve, by Woody Woodger

u actually should
Liv, you text me that when i say i should write
you a poem.

Why be poly?: three’s really stable,
actually. It’s hard to fuck a stool

with two legs. I watch my friend clean up after her party,
see nothing above her knees, like she’s a Pixar adult–doing something off screen I can’t yet
understand. My friend mops like how mom taught me. Focus. Watch the mop. Mop away

from your feet. Don’t step in all that good
work you’ve done.
or I’ll make you do it again. Liv, i can’t ever spell
your name without the present

tense. I smell the shirt he left here and cry
and cry. Liv, I’ve always wanted to vanish. Not die but
unappear. Behind TV and weed and gin and laundry.

A good cry, baby. Liv, it’s hard. Names are hard
for me. Memory, a trap;

it sucks. I keep hurting my ex i’m trying to get back even
though I love him.
I find shreds of paper in the lint trap and think wow, I hope this wasn’t something I was
supposed to
cherish. Carry the toilet paper in my armpit, and the box of cat food with my hand. Can I
be careful

and strapping at the same time? Liv, I’m actually thinking about you.
Poems are all just talk;
what am I actually gonna do?

1. Well, I’m gonna shove my hair in a hat for work.
2. I’m gonna brush my teeth.
3. I’m gonna zip my fly and mouth

more. I’m gonna remember to flush the fucking toilet. Then
Black out. Again. Drunk. Just. Like that. No more theatrics, just habit. Easy and
unsatisfying Sopranos-ending bullshit.

But now, I’m awake
all over again. Awoke on a couch. And suddenly, the day’s a whole other person.
Liv, I’m the person you believe in.

In the future, Daddy Buzz and I attempt to work it out. He says “i actually need you,
Wood’,
to be a real life person. Not this droopy cotton just selfie-smiling while I ask it serious
questions.”
I polish off this tercet last night, buried
between Him and His new girlfriend
He also loves. As for me? I’m not going anywhere.

In the future,

1. I actually should be sober.
2. I actually should leave my ex alone (but won’t)
3. I actually should give the quatrain
4. a chance. I actually should write you a poem,

Liv. But right now, I make my friend from the beginning of the poem read the latest sad
text from my ex. She offers that, it seems, he
needs a boundary but really
she isn’t able help. She hands my hungover ass a coconut water and tells me it’s about
that time. Her real life name’s Gloria. Liv, next time we hang, I promise,

you’ll love her