To forget about a former lover

[Jack Chiefton]

I decide it's time to pay my ex-girlfriend back the 75 dollars i owe her. I wrote her a check over a year ago and supposedly she never cashed it. seeing that i don't have a checkbook, she initiates a meeting at the library so i can pay her off for good. i haven't seen her in six months. that's not long enough if you ask me.

i'm walking down the sidwalk with my hands in my pockets, dirty jeans on, and sunglasses covering my blood-shot eyes. the sun has been down for hours. the few people i pass are laughing, enjoying the fine benefits they have been offered to attend one of the finest colleges in the country. i fail to see the benefits. i only see two people, kissing, laughing, arm in arm love bugs. i feel nauseous.

i get to the library and there she is waiting for me. she's never looked better, i've never looked worse. she's wearing tight black pants with a tight baby blue care bear(?) shirt on, something she never would have worn going out with me. her breasts look perky beyone my rememberance of them. her beautiful blues penetrate my glasses, and wisps of blonde hair curl out from underneath her blue bandana. i look like i just put in a 16 hour day on the farm.

i pay her the money, and i notice this guy staring at us. he's trying to look inconspicous. his glares start to piss me off, so i ask my ex if she knows him.

"that's my boyfriend," says she.

i don't respond. i hand her the 75 dollars and leave. i walk home, feeling lower than i felt walking to meet her. i take a detour and step into the bar to do what i do best, drink away the day's memories.

sitting at the bar i start to wonder if this was a coniving, suck on this you loser plot. obviously she wanted me to see the new guy that now fucks her.

after six beers i have a graphic image that storms my mind like a united states military push, unwanted and unneccessary. the image i have details my ex being fucked doggy-style by the new guy. i can't get it out of my head. however, it doesn't make me sad. it makes me laugh. so be it.

i hope he fucks her just as good as i did, if not better. i hope that he grabs onto her hair for more thrust while banging away from behind. i hope she melts his eyes with the rabid look while she's sucking him off. i hope he jack-hammers her better than any moment i was ever able to offer her.

i become hysterical with laughter. it all seems so trivial now. it's the greatest epiphany i've ever had. and that, is how i will forget about an ex lover for now on.

[martino]

jack, i like stories like yours that are about emotional closure. (it's well written, to boot; slightly whiny maybe but honest.)

i know i am talking psychobabble -- but catharsis is a strange thing, isn't it? i think redemption is something we all want but find hard to get.

i for one am constantly trying to forget my old sins and to forgive myself for them, to forget things my parents did to me, to forgive the mistakes of past lovers and friends. but it's fucking hard.

i yearn for a new start, for the emotional freshness that children have. maybe it would take a spraying of mis-aimed bullets like in pulp fiction. sometimes i wish i was still catholic and could cleanse my soul at confession.

it would be cool to read a compilation of short stories about emotional closure. like 15 cases of "she fucked me up but i got over it through..."

of course, mc has already written some swell ones but there are plenty more stories out there that are just screaming to be told.

[<Jack Chiefton>]

catharsis is a strange thing. But it's very obtainable once you realize the proper foothold on the wall you're trying to hurdle. Aristotle put it into perspective by observing that it's best to bring proper inhibited emotions into a clearer consciousness.