When I said that "she left me with only what I had before I married her" I failed to mention that on the bathroom sink she left two unopened female condoms. We had never used them, so I know they were not marital property being returned. Do you think this was a message? The brand name is Reality. She left me those, but took every corkscrew we owned, as well as those cute little yellow plastic trays you put corn-on-the-cob in. That was something I would make for myself because she didn't especially care for it.

So today I cleaned the kitchen. I wanted to begin the cleaning process with a Native American smudge pot, to chase away all of the bad spirits she brought in my home. I was unable to find any place that sold it, so I had to settle for Pine Sol and bleach. I really haven't told any stories about my life with her, so I present a poem instead:

What Kind of Woman Would Take a Man's Hard Drive?

I
She took my teeth, my partial bridge,
Accused me of taking something of hers she valued.
So she stole into the bathroom that night
And left me looking like a toothless junkie.

Although I would plead with her,
Lisping inarticulately that I did not know
Where her missing jewelry was,
She needed to teach me a liar's lesson.

A condemned man will claim his innocence
But makes peace with death outside his cell.
She took her revenge and hid my teeth.
And I saw my execution in her eyes.

I thought about Hamlet telling Horatio
About mysteries beyond the scope of our comprehension,
Knowing the measure of my humiliation
Would be as wide as the gap in my mouth.

This woman, my wife, studied torture in North Korea.
Once she took my glasses from the bedstand
And twisted them into a pretzel shape,
Then smashed the lens with a hammer.

It was as if she had removed my eyes.
Rendering me blind made her happy.
She needed me to feel Powerless.
Said this was the only way I would see.

II
She was training me, always training me.
Refining me. Molding me into someone better.
Like she was. A woman of imagined culture.
I learned to carry her bags,

And I learned to walk on the street side,
To let her precede me in a restaurant,
Unfold the napkin and correctly set the silverware;
I became a perfectly unhappy gentleman.

Who gives a shit about fire king or blue willow china?
For godsake you eat off of it and scrape away leftovers,
Like the crusty emotional scars she left on my heart.
That I am now scrubbing away with brillo pads and poetry.