To the Artist's Page                To our home page

To Shane Jones's previous piece     To Shane Jones's next piece

Not So Perfect  

Talking on the phone
to a girl
who's phone number
I recently got,
I thought I had the perfect line.
She sent me her poems
in the mail the week before.
Horrible poems about 
"life like a burning rose"
and, "bleeding dirty smiles."
I offered
to take her to the bar,
buy drinks, and edit the poems.
She said no.
I then asked what other guy
would offer to do
such a thing.
She said her poetry professor
back in college
took her to the bar
and he spoke fluent French.
This wouldn't have been as bad
if my ex-girlfriend
didn't leave me 
for a French exchange student
back in college.
To get even 
I sent all her poems 
to dozens of zines.
Collected all the rejections
and sent them to her house.
She called and said
rejections don't mean anything.
Her poetry professor told her that.
It didn't matter.
She was writing a novel.

To the top of this page