More Modified 12...M.C. Thompson

More Modified Twelve-Step Affirmations
By Mel C. Thompson


Just for today, I'll pretend
I'm not fucked in every way
and try to convince myself
you're not a frumpy, sub-human troll.

Just for today let's affirm
that the gods don't hate us.
(Please ignore their bloody hatchets
drawn crossbows and glimmering swords.)

Conclude that your Higher Power
does not revel in the creative joys
of being endlessly inventive
when it comes to torturing you.

Just for today, call yourself
inherently sexy, although alcoholics,
drug addicts, food addicts, sex addicts
and drama queens are all you attract.

Just for today, claim divine prosperity,
although you can't afford a massage
or a psychiatrist or a vacation to anywhere
Greyhound doesn't go. Your big breakthrough

is just around the corner. I feel it
in the very marrow of my bones.
(Okay, that part is completely a lie.
Frankly, I think you're deeply doomed.)

But just for today, I'll try not
to judge you like I always do.
(I usually hate your taste in everything.
Never mind. Let's focus on the positive.)

Just for today, I'll resist writing
a political poem. I can do this!
Let us join hands and with one voice
affirm that nothing we believe is true.

Nothing I believe could ever possibly
be true. Because of that I feel great
Bodhisattva compassion. If I leave you
the fuck alone for just a little while

that would truly be a great act of love.
And, on a closing note, just for today
I'll resolve to use the word "fuck"
a lot less often in future poems.