Love Lesson # 2014 from Buffy the Vampire Slayer
This message is not for me:
“Just thinking of you and hope
things will go smoother
for you and love
you.”
A slayer with family and friends wasn’t in the brochure:
“sorry, off by one digit,
please delete me”
Without a slayer, you are just pretty much watching
And without a spinster and Halloween cats,
the matchmakers are pretty much on
a rant, no room for logic:
on New Year’s Eve
someone’s mother called me
by mistake
I remembered my mother
is dead
when there was no one to make me tea
or bury me in the crypt of his body
“You can’t keep trying to make everything work
with one big gesture
or by publishing a book of poems to distract from this: “
“Thanks,
but who is this?
Tragedy?
I am no longer in love
with you.” You no longer turn me on
this old mattress —
all I need:
an unbudger of support I’m five by five
and know the soul is not
all about moonbeams and penny whistles: it’s about self-
loathing.
But someone I don’t know loves me. I have a text that says so.
—
This selection comes from Lisa Cheby’s Love Lessons from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, available from Dancing Girl Press. Purchase your copy here!
Lisa Cheby is a writer and a librarian in a public high school in Los Angeles, CA. She earned an MFA from Antioch, is an MLIS candidate at San Jose State University, and is the poetry editor for Annotation Nation. Her poems and reviews have appeared in various journals including The Rumpus, Eclipse, The Mom Egg, The Citron Review, Two Hawks Quarterly, Tidal Basin Review and A cappella Zoo and in the anthologies Drawn to Marvel: Poems from the Comic Book and The Burden of Light: Poems on Illness and Loss. Her first book, Love Lessons from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is available from Dancing Girl Press.
Darren C. Demaree is the author of three poetry collections, As We Refer to Our Bodies (2013, 8th House), Temporary Champions (2014, Main Street Rag), and Not For Art For Prayer (2015, 8th House). He is the recipient of three Pushcart Prize nominations and a Best of the Net nomination. He is also a founding editor of Ovenbird Poetry and AltOhio. He is currently living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.
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