Nathan Logan

Things Really Went to Hell

Everyone in your house had a beard,
even the smooth-haired dachshund
with the wheelchair attachment.
Her name was Margot, you said.

You asked about my trip. Bus travel
was invented for the fashion depraved
and those who enjoy touring historical sites.
I am neither of those kinds of people, I said.

I was forthright about my interest in socks.
You had hyped yours up in our conversations
over the Internet. Your best quality was love
of fabrics. That was also something you said.

I asked about them, your socks,
only to look down and see orange
polka-dot boots. Margot was there too,
a stuffed octopus in her mouth.

Someone sneezed upstairs.
You offered to drive me around town
in your bloodmobile as compensation
for the lies you told me about your socks.

That didn’t seem adequate compensation to me.
I said but all those pictures and you said Photoshop.
I asked if I was the first and you said not even close.
Margot squeaked across the floor, tentacle in mouth.

I said my heart was not a plush toy and you said
it was a sock. I walked back out your door, past
the bloodmobile with the license plate motto:
The Sideburn State. Now, this made sense.

I wrapped this relief around me like a scarf
and was on a bus home twenty minutes later.
And I was so happy—my scarf said don’t mess with me,
I’m the saddest motherfucker with a window seat.

Nathan Logan’s latest chapbook is Arby’s Combo Roundup (Mondo Bummer, 2010). He runs Spooky Girlfriend Press and is a PhD student in Creative Writing at the University of North Texas.