My Ex
Some women
remind me of cities,
and like cities each has
a unique character and spirit.
I am thinking specifically
of my ex now.
She was no London,
Paris or Berlin.
She was heavy and dark,
unwelcoming and cold
as Prague on a rainy
April afternoon,
or more accurately,
she reminded me
of the blackened
concrete block buildings
you see lining
the narrow streets
of the Hungarian Capital.
Yes, my ex is Budapest.
Practice
Living with her was my Buddhist practice,
A testing of humble endurance,
one long lesson, a lengthy study
in quietly suffering the insufferable.
The boisterous reality and riotous truth of her
elbowing into the crowded salon
of consciousness, wearing the black evening gown
of obsession, beginning the
loquacious soliloquies of intrusive thoughts,
midnight ruminations that grow
into the early morning unintended consequences
of loving the loathsome.
