Boot Theory

By Richard Siken

A man walks into a bar and says:
                                                   Take my wife—please.
                                                                                                So you do.
    You take her out into the rain and you fall in love with her
                                                          and she leaves you and you're desolate.
You're on your back in your undershirt, a broken man
                      on an ugly bedspread, staring at the water stains
                                                                                                                on the ceiling
        And you can hear the man in the apartment above you
                                          taking off his shoes.
You hear the first boot hit the floor and you're looking up,
                                                                                                    you're waiting
        because you thought it would follow you, you thought there would be
                          some logic, perhaps, something to pull it all together
                but here we are in the weeds again,
                                                                                                    here we are
in the bowels of the thing: your world doesn't make sense.
                          And then the second boot falls.
                                                                      And then a third, a fourth, a fifth.

        A man walks into a bar and says:
                                                   Take my wife—please.
                                                                                But you take him instead.
You take him home, and you make him a cheese sandwich,
            and you try to get his shoes off, but he kicks you
                                                                                                and he keeps on kicking you.
    You swallow a bottle of sleeping pills but they don't work.
                      Boots continue to fall to the floor
                                                                                in the apartment above you.
You go to work the next day pretending nothing happened.
            Your co-workers ask
                                      if everything's okay and you tell them
                                                                            you're just tired.
    And you're trying to smile. And they're trying to smile.

A man walks into a bar, you this time, and says:
                                         Make it a double.
            A man walks into a bar, you this time, and says:
                                                                                Walk a mile in my shoes.
A man walks into a convenience store, still you, saying:
                              I only wanted something simple, something generic...
    But the clerk tells you to buy something or get out.
A man takes his sadness down the river and throws it in the river
            but then he's still left
with the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away
                                                      but then he's still left with his hands.


From 'Crush'