Sylvie Hill

Oh My Love, With Gout

Oh, love –
With gout.
What happened to us?

You can ignore my messages
But you always answer the call.
And I knew the feel of your saunter
and sound of chain wallet in the mall.

Just like old times.
We two are the few who never missed a kiss
or a hug in public, fuck the affectionless.

Oh, love –
With gout.
That cough.

You know me now: healthy
Despite you’re resurrecting me in the past
With all kinds of troubles and anxieties
It is me the strong one – no doubt.

I do not judge.
The gout…
The cough…
The tough…

You choose a noisy place
Because you can’t hear anyways
It lets you clown and joke your story
Away from my real questions that will destroy you.

“So your Dad’s mind is going, you must visit.
So your apartment is falling apart, move or get it fixed.
So that girl who left you? She just walked in?
You’re not the tyrant you think you are – can I tell her this?”

Instead you said:
“That guy is a dick, don’t ever talk to him.
You’re not over you mom, how can you be even?”

But that is it.
Not the usual confrontation.
He’s got nothing on me this summer.

I pine not for the dick.
I accept my family for the dysfunction and void it is.

Oh, love –
With gout.
We could make love.

I’m not for younger men, your 49 makes me wet.
It’s been our 15 years, we can compare tricks.
But I love when I fuck, and our love is dead
But I will forever look after your spirit and head.

Oh, love –
With gout.
Why do you rot?

You’re what makes me so beautiful
And you’re also what makes me the ugliest.

Sure it’s Joseph Arthur, just like you said
His tunes, and dinners, massages, talks, and gifts.
I’m the only One that can crack through your shit
And it pains me like gout that I can’t find it again to give.

Oh, love —
With gout.
It’s been the same throughout.

“When you left me at the kitchen table
I couldn’t comprehend why you were not able
to think of the good times, I only think of the best
and all the bad stuff I forget, what ‘bad shit’?”

Oh, love –
With gout.
This was our marriage.

I will wed you should I be terminal
So you can take my pension and finance your medical.
Until then, promise me this forever until we expire:
We shall always, in our way, take care of the other.

I do by letting you talk your poison comedy.
I say nothing about my life’s successes and happenings.
I think you funny, and you say nothing of my fine armory.
We both know we have grown old, cold, from being out of loving.

Secretly, we know we had the good stuff.
But the bad stuff consumed too much of you, and that wasn’t good for us.

Sylvie Hill, July 7, 2018