For the Story: If I Were Petty - Chapter One
I'd steal it back—
my poem that she posted as her own.
I'd name her plainly, demand
a public apology—
an admission of hypocrisy
from the one who keeps her hands clean,
grins like a simpleton, cackles
like she's getting away with it,
this even meaner magic.
Navel-gazing Narcissus
must not have realized
I was never planning to stay
quiet. I am nothing
if not a truthful storyteller.
Now here’s the frame:
I wrote it as an example
to model the concept of structure.
She'd dumped her word jumble of a draft
into my lap—again, unprompted, long past
my repeated requests
that she please, please stop doing that.
What I wrote, for those familiar with craft,
is called an after poem. Ironic,
since she didn’t tell me until after it was posted—
after it collected accolades,
after it scratched her inexhaustible itch for praise.
She can keep the cursed thing
at this stage—
still even my saying that doesn't make it hers
or mean she wrote it.
Just that I'm giving in
to the pathetic, spinning fantasy
over a piece that wasn't even my best work.
I get sick with pity when I think of it,
when I spot her avatar, check her list—
to see my work still sitting there,
near the middle section of her page six—
She pissed away our friendship
for a few pixels distributed by strangers,
and that's not even the worst of it,
but I only have time and energy
for one plot twist.
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