I’m happy

I don’t always look back. But when I do it looks something like this.

The photos are older than the poem. They are from the trip to Lefkas (Lefkada) island in Greece in 2007. The poem is from a recent summer. And the past is in the past where it belongs, only sometimes it raises its head and then I tell it that I’m happy.

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I’m happy, okay?
I’m cooking a soup, just for me
(he doesn’t believe in soups in the summer).

This is what you pushed me towards.

Once you left me tied
with… (I have to google it, fuck!)
Slayer!! Slayer playing.

Once you spat in my face
and when I asked you later
if you’d do it for real too
you gave me one of your sighs.

I loved you for this and other things.
How you encouraged me to go swimming.
How you teased me about fucking mashed potatoes.
You saw how desperate I was
as I had to make them day after day
because he didn’t like potatoes any other way.

How you backed off.
You knew I was not for you.
You knew you were merely a catalyst.

You were 13 years younger.
Tall, Swedish, chef in your spare time.
I have pages and pages of us saved.
Our bickering and back-and-forths
deserve to become legendary.

I told you once how I wished to write with you.
You were genuinely surprised.
I liked surprising you.
Your errors and bad grammar made you even better.
And your syntax.
Man, I could eat it for all meals.
And in a way I did. For years.

Of course I wondered if body-to-body
would change things.
I knew it would, I saw your taste in girls.
You loved me, maybe
but for me, not for my body.
My body would be in the way.
So we left it at this.

You wanted me happy.
And now I am.

We don’t talk any more.
Once, for your birthday
– oh, you are over thirty now! –
you told me you had a wish.
Your wish was
to make him cook for me.

I did better than that.

I had to stop talking to you
after you turned bitter.
Possibly you felt to be losing out
even though you said
that you didn’t wish to be
the home-breaker.

You enabled it, in a way.
And now I’d like to tell you
that I’m happy.

I’m cooking for myself today
happily
although usually he cooks for us.
You’d like him.
He’s got your humour
and believes that mashed potatoes
are only good as hospital food.

And he made me forget
how you didn’t show me yourself
until it was too late.
Or just in time, depends how you see it.
And even then only
one eye
one ear
one half of mouth and forehead.
(Yeah, yeah, the bellybutton too.)

I made a photo robot of you
by mirroring the halves
making you a super symmetrical
psychopath.

You gave me your first name
and your street in Stockholm
and told me to read
the Dragon Tattoo books.

You were the enabler.

When I tracked you down online
you blocked me for three months.
Because it wasn’t you.
Maybe it was your father.
I sent a message for you
to your father instead.
Hahahah, I’d block myself too.

How I wished to see you
at least for a moment
waving at a city camera perhaps.
How I went to a shop
to smell the scent you used.
(It was something Italian.)

I could build my life on this.
And in a sense I had.

You were the enabler
because you wished me well.

You let me go
into the world.
And now I’m happy
serene and cooking.
Swimming, coming, up.

Photo: MP

Photo: MP

Photo: a © signature mmm production (except two of me)